Fig Creations: Bobbin Lace (Mundillo)

This past February we took a surprise vacation on our beautiful island Puerto Rico. My husband and I were born there, so we try to go and visit our family as often as we can.

While visiting our family, my mom talked to us about a museum she was dreaming to go for years, so we decided to take her to the Bobbin Lace Museum.

In the town of Moca, PR there is a museum of Bobbin Lace (Mundillo in Spanish). Bobbin Lace is the art of making lace for baby and adult clothes. In the 1920's and 1960's it was one of the more important industries in the economy of the town. The women worked from home or in factories, and the production was exported to the USA, mostly to New York. Time has passed and this beautiful art is still alive, even when is not the big industry it was in the past. Throughout the island you can find a lot of bobbin lace makers, mostly in the west of the island.

To make the bobbin lace, the necessary materials are bobbins, thread, pins, and a pattern. The lace is worked on a loom or the "mundillo", which is a box with a pad where you place the pattern. This pad should be rotated to complete the lace as the piece is getting done .