Shetland Lace References

There are many early knitting pattern books available through libraries and also to download online. Prior to beginning the project, over 70 knitting pattern publications were examined looking for references to Shetland. The bibliography below lists the 18 of those publications that were selected to use in our project. Our sample library also notes the publication from which the sample came, and includes a link to access it online.

19th-century Pattern Books used in the Authenticity in Shetland Lace project

  • Cooper, Mary Jane, The New Guide to Knitting and Crochet (London: J. S. Cooper and Parry, Blenkarn and Co., 1847)
  • Copley, Esther, The Comprehensive Knitting Book (London: William Tegg and Co., 1849)
  • Corbould, Eliva, The Lady’s Knitting-Book (second series) (London: Hatchards, 1878)
  • Gaugain, Jane, The Lady’s Assistant in Knitting, Netting, and Crochet Work with an appendix containing directions and remarks for working in embroidery or worsted work, raised cut work, tatting, &c. Illustrated by upwards of forty coloured designs. Second volume (Edinburgh: I. J. Gaugain, 1842)
  • Gaugain, Jane, The Lady’s Assistant in Knitting, Netting, and Crochet Work. Illustrated by upwards of seventy patterns, Vol. II fifth thousand (Edinburgh: I. J. Gaugain, 1857)
  • Gaugain, Jane, The Lady’s Assistant in Knitting, Netting, and Crochet Work. Illustrated by upwards of seventy patterns, Vol. III third thousand (Edinburgh: I. J. Gaugain, 1857)
  • Jackson, Elizabeth, The Practical Companion to the Work-Table. Containing Selections for Knitting, Netting, & Crochet Work (London: Hamilton, Adams and Co., 1844)
  • Jackson, Elizabeth, The Practical Companion to the Work-Table. Containing directions for Knitting, Netting, & Crochet Work (London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., 1845)
  • Lambert, Frances, My Knitting Book (London: John Murray, 1845)
  • Lambert, Frances, My Knitting Book (second series) (London: John Murray, 1847)
  • Lambert, Frances, The Hand-Book of Needlework, Decorative and Ornamental, including crochet, knitting, and netting, with illustrative engravings, fifth edition, revised and considerably enlarged (London: John Murray, 1846)
  • Lambert, Frances, The Hand-Book of Needlework, with numerous illustrations engraved by J. J. Butler (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1842)
  • Owen, Mrs Henry, The Illuminated Ladies’ Book of Useful and Ornamental Needlework, second edition (Edinburgh: Thomas Brooks, 1844)
  • Riego De La Branchardiere, Mlle Eléonore, Knitting, Crochet and Netting (London: S. Knights, 1846)
  • Riego De La Branchardiere, Mlle Eléonore, The Abergeldie Winter Book (London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., 1867)
  • Riego De La Branchardiere, Mlle Eléonore, The Knitting Book, third edition (London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., 1848)
  • Warren, Mrs, The Drawing-Room Magazine: or Ladies Book of Fancy Needlework and Choire Literature, Vol. I (London: Houlston and Stoneman, 1848)
  • Watts, Miss, The Illustrated Knitting, Netting, and Crochet Book (London: J. MIland, 1845)

Further Reading

  • Chapman, Roslyn, The history of the fine lace knitting industry in nineteenth and early twentieth century Shetland (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2015), available at http://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/6763
  • Chapman, Roslyn, ‘Shetland lace’ in Shetland Textiles: 800 BC to the Present ed. by Sarah Laurenson (Lerwick: Shetland Heritage Publications, 2013), pp.120-133
  • Chapman, Roslyn, ‘Sent to the other side of the world? The fashion for Shetland fine lace knitting in 1920s Australia’ in Disseminating Dress: Britain’s Fashion Networks, 1600–1970 ed. by Serena Dyer, Jade Halbert, and Sophie Littlewood (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2022), pp.231-250
  • Christiansen, Carol, Shetland Fine Lace Knitting: Recreating Patterns from the Past (The Crowood Press, 2024)
  • Ledbetter, Kathryn, Victorian Needlework (Oxford: Praeger, 2012)
  • Ledbetter, Kathryn and Renn Edward Wortley, ‘The “Ungallant Silence of the Historian”: Elizabeth Stone, Esther Owen and the Art of Needlework’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 19:3 (2014), pp.261-277, available at https://doi.org/10.1080/13555502.2014.947183
  • De Ridder, Jolein and Marianne van Remoortel, ‘Not “Simply Mrs. Warren”: Eliza Warren Francis (1810-1900) and the “Ladies’ Treasury”‘, Victorian Periodicals Review, 44 (2011), pp.307-26, available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/24642956
  • Tarrant, Naomi, ‘Mrs Jane Gaugain, Edinburgh’s Celebrated Author of Knitting Manuals’, Journal of the Scottish Genealogy Society, Vol. LXIII (2016), pp.3-12
  • Van Remoortel, Marianne, ‘Threads of Life: Matilda Marian Pullan (1819-1862), Needlework Instruction, and the Periodical Press’, Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 45, No. 3 (2012), pp.253-276, available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/41638147

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