Saba Lace Ladies lead workshops at Amsterdam craft festival

Three Saba Lace Ladies led workshops and demonstrations at the Ambacht in Beeld craft festival on Saturday 26 September and Sunday 27 September at NDSM Loods in Amsterdam-Noord, according to Public Entity Saba. Alma Peggy Barnes, Miranda Simmons and Madelyn Johnson represented Saba, while the Executive Council attended to support the delegation.

Barnes and Simmons led two-hour beginner workshops on both days, teaching participants how to prepare linen and make traditional hemstitch and web borders, Public Entity Saba said. Johnson sold Saba Lace books and items at the festival stand. Festival organisers had invited craftspeople from Caribbean Netherlands islands, Aruba, Curaçao, St. Maarten and Suriname for an edition focused on Caribbean crafts.

Public Entity Saba said Saba Lace, also called drawn-thread work or Spanish Work, came to the island in the 1870s through Mary Gertrude Hassell Johnson. The craft became a mail-order business after regular mail service began in 1884. In 1915, about 250 of Saba’s 2,500 residents earned a living from drawn-thread work, and lace exports were worth about US$15,000 a year by 1928, the entity said.