Lacemaking Tells (rhymes/songs sung while lacemaking)
Above: Gemma Khawaja’s version of Needlepin, a lace tell. The Lacemaking Tells are unaccompanied counting songs and rhymes sung/chanted by young lacemakers, particularly used in the lace schools, when they are first being taught to make lace. These songs tended to be made up of fragments of ballads, nursery rhymes and sometimes even hymns, and …