Traditional Maltese Lacemaking

Recent­ly my dad took a busi­ness trip to Mal­ta & Gozo, islands off the coast of Italy in the Mediter­ranean.  Mal­ta & Gozo are well-known for their tra­di­tion­al bob­bin lace called “bizzil­la.” So when my dad first told me he was trav­el­ing to Mal­ta, I imme­di­ate­ly request­ed that he return home with Mal­tese lace and video footage of the Mal­tese lace­mak­ers in the streets!

Many years ago, I remem­ber an old­er seam­stress shar­ing with me her dreams of going to Mal­ta to learn the art of cre­at­ing tra­di­tion­al bob­bin lace. Even though the Mal­tese lace dates back to the 16th cen­tu­ry, you can still spot women lace­mak­ing in the streets or find shops that offer the tra­di­tion­al bob­bin lace­mak­ing classes.

I know that every­one thinks that they have the best dad ever, but I real­ly think I’m lucky to have my dad for a father (and a boss)!

Instead of bring­ing home a piece of lace for me, he brought back an authen­tic lace­mak­ing kit used/started by one of the Mal­tese lace mak­ers! I about cried with joy when I received the gift!

I’m still shocked that he was able to acquire one of these “straw pil­lows,” which they call tra­jbu. He knew enough to spot the tra­jbu, con­vince the own­er to part with it, AND he some­how got the large stuffed pil­low through customs!

Youtube video of lace­mak­ing in Malta

[youtu­ber youtube=‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPgp1zFwfGw’]

The 8 point­ed Mal­tese cross is found in many of the old pieces of lace and Mal­tese designs.

I’m extreme­ly excit­ed about my gift, but now my job is to fig­ure out how to use the bob­bins and fin­ish the weave. Since it is authen­tic, it did not arrive with instructions!

I bought a cou­ple of books to help me fin­ish the lace from Mal­ta. The first book is about the his­to­ry of bob­bin lace and the sec­ond book gives detailed instruc­tions on how to make and fol­low bob­bin lace patterns.

I don’t know when I’ll find time to learn this craft, but I sure hope I can get around to fin­ish­ing this lace soon! In fact, I’m itch­ing to cre­ate my own bob­bin lace patterns.

Stay tuned for future posts about bob­bin lace!

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I think my dad learned way more about lace than he ever expect­ed to learn…

My dad spent part of his time in Mal­ta giv­ing talks about his expe­ri­ence in the NFL and offer­ing a foot­ball camp for the Mal­tese boys.

Just pri­or to the foot­ball camp, he real­ized he need­ed more foot­balls. But after search­ing the entire island, there was not one foot­ball to be bought or found! Instead he found all kinds or lace along the way!

Almost every day I received  pho­tos of  the dif­fer­ent laces he found along the way!

Below are some pic­tures he took of Mal­ta. So beau­ti­ful!