I'm not sure if my email came through or not as my computer suddenly got mouse problems. What little I know,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatting What she may have been referring to is filet lace which use a shuttle of sorts to make the netting background. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filet_lace http://lace.lacefairy.com/ID/FiletID.html >From my understanding, tatting came about as a way to mimic point laces, like, http://www.vintagetextile.com/new_page_289.htm Also, problem now a days is that anything that has a netted looking background is called filet and thus you end up with filet crochet and filet tatting which can cause some confusion. I do not know how far back tatting may have gone but from what I have read I believe that it was around in the early 1500s and may have feasibly been around in the late 1400s but slim chance being on garments. De -----Original Message----- Greetings I have always heard that tatting didn't come into use before the 1700s and so haven't been doing it for Tudor/Elizabethan. Yesterday I was told by a lady that needle tatting can be documented to quite early and she said it's mentioned several times in the Canterbury Tales. She also mentioned that it's related to making fishing nets. I'm wondering if any of you knowledgeable folks out there can help me. I'm having a problem with her data for a couple of reasons. 1) If tatting shows up in the Canterbury Tales, I know word meanings change over hundreds of years. Do we know that tatting then is what we call tatting? 2) It's quite a reach from fishing nets to the tiny rings and picots of tatting. I believe they're related but I don't consider net making proof of tatting. Any help would be appreciated. TIA Julie _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
