Needle
lace is made entirely with a needle and thread and pre-dates
bobbin lace. It developed from cut work and embroidery sometime
during the 16th century. 
The origin of knitting is unknown; the first
'real' knitted garments are attributed to the 4th or 5th
centuries AD. Knitting is said to have been brought to
Spain by Arab traders. By the 11th century Spain had
become the centre of hand-knitted lace and silken hose, and the
craft spread rapidly to the rest of Europe. The knitting technique uses two or more needles to produce a fabric, the needles repeatedly interloop a single element. Each loop secures the corresponding loop in the previous row so that all the loops are vertically aligned. Knitted lace can be reduced to two bare essentials (1) a yarn-over stitch and (2) a decrease.
The period of White Knitting which flourished throughout the 17th to the early 19th centuries produced knitted lace masterpieces which could emulate the bobbin laces of the time, freehand designs flowing in flower-like forms.
It is believed that the art of lace
knitting in the Shetland Isles began a lot later than the
coloured Fair Isle patterns. However, once the craft had
been established around 1830, the good staple length and the
soft fine quality of the native Shetland fleece gave great
impulse to this new branch of an industry in which the women
were already well accomplished.
Needle Lace Needle
lace is made entirely with a needle and thread and pre-dates
bobbin lace. It developed from cut work and embroidery sometime
during the 16th century.
The art of drawing threads from material and then filling the spaces left with buttonhole stitches become known as Reticella. This method gave a very geometric style of lace. This framework was soon discarded and designs were freely drawn on to parchment, thus giving the designer more freedom for more ambitious designs to be undertaken. Two thick threads were couched down around the outline. Lace fillings and the padding around the edge were worked in a finer thread on the surface of the pattern. When completed it was removed from the parchment and thus the style was known as Punto in Aria stitches in the air.
Contemporary needlelacemakers use a variety of threads —
metallics, silk, synthetics, frequently in colour, and
3-dimensional forms are commonplace.
Point Ground
This is
a continuous bobbin lace, with a mesh ground of uncovered
pinholes. The pattern work, or toile, was surrounded by a
thicker silky gimp and the edges are decorated with picots. The
toiles were usually floral, or geometric, and often contained
fillings.
Bucks Point, one of the family of Point Ground laces, was made all over the East and South Midlands of England. Refugees from Europe, especially Mechlin and Lille, greatly influenced the designs and quality of techniques.
Generally it was made in white cotton thread, but quite a lot was made in black silk, and it was used to decorate all forms of clothing, from baby bonnets to Victorian crinoline dresses, fans and parasols. Nowadays small circular motifs are popular for brooch fillings and pendants.
The bobbins
used to make this lace were spangled, and these bobbins are the
ones commonly used by modern lacemakers.
ABC(3) — Crochet, Flanders Lace, Honiton
Lace
ABC(5) — Rosaline
Perlée, Russian Lace, Tambour
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