crocheting, a relatively new 'neeedlework craft' was born out of sumptuary laws. some of the sumptuary laws regulated who could wear lace, and how much. (especially the laws of England and France, since much of the best lace was imported from Brussels, Spain and Italy)
but like modern day drug laws, they outlawed real lace, (usually made from silk and sometimes from silk and linen), not copy cats.
crochet, sometimes called 'lace made in the air', can mimic real lace (nowdays called pillow lace because it is constructed from bobbins of thread, held in place by pins on a 'pillow' when being constructed), but was ususally exempted--because it was a) cotton, and b)locally made, not imported.
crocheting became a popular craft almost over night. Irish lace, is one of the few remaining examples of style of fine cotton lace that can be made with crochet. It got its start in the 1840, when nuns from france taught it to irish girls, as a mean for them to earn money during the time of the famine. Crochet was much more popular in france than it ever was in england.
nowdays, very few people crochet with the super fine (sewing thread weight) cotton used for irish lace.
(thread are measured by a number, the higher the number, the finer the thread. most crochet cotton today is size 10, some is size 30 or 40, irish crochet uses size 80!
(embroidery thread (all six strands together) is size 5)
sumptuary laws
