Nathalie didn't say she thought knitting developed to imitate lace, she wondered if "lace knitting" developed to imitate lace. We know knitting is very old. I don't claim to know the history of knitting, but I think the Vikings were doing it, and they probably weren't the first. But the question about lace knitting is interesting. Certainly the technology was present, but were people making very loose airy knitting prior to the development of lace? Lace seems to have developed only in Europe and as a response to changes in European fashion, ie. the need to embellish the necklines of underblouses in the late 15th, early 16th century, and then ran amok, what with the Flemish linen industry, Ruffs, etc. Knitting does seem better suited to keeping people warm than to making items full of holes that must be less warm than Fair Isle Sweaters, for instance. Do those lacey Shetland shawls predate the lace craze in fashion? If so, it would have formed what we think of as a lace aesthetic prior to the development of lace as we know it. I am photographing a lace collection which includes some rather clunky knitted lace edgings, yards of them. They are not delicate, yet, I think they were intended to look like lace, but heavy, ugly lace. I can't imagine what they were used for.They seem too heavy for underwear. Pillow cases perhaps? Embellishment for costumes that relied too highly on the assurances contained in women's handicraft magazines that you could make your own lace? I think they probably date from the late 19th or even the early 20th century. They have the kind of profound ugliness that you often see on things that date from the 1930s. Devon
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