I'm with Lizzie on this one! As a keen embroiderer I was tempted to have a go until I saw the patterns and the process. My goodness - talk about complicated!
As danuslave has said, once you have understood the concept of following the pattern, which is drawn onto a piece of card and pinned onto the pillow, it really isn't that complicated. I was taught bobbin lace making by my grandmother, and once I had understood the basic process didn't find it too difficult, and (for myself) much easier than knitting.
I have much of my grandmother's lace, including one piece, which I remember watching her make with, I think, 32 pairs of bobbins (the bobbins are always worked in pairs)
Lacemaking isn't cheap to take up either, it's not just a matter of a couple of knitting needles or crochet hooks, so I don't know how our poor ancestors did it.
It isn't cheap to take up now, particularly if you want to buy antique bobbins (I am fortunate to have inherited a large collection) but our ancestors would just have used scraps of wood and bone mostly to make their bobbins. Horsehair would have been used to stuff the pillows.
There is a picture of one of my bobbins (with an interesting story behind it!) here - read reply #21, then go down to #23
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,457918.msg3191471.html#msg3191471Jennifer
