Pretty Things

Not my knitting, but the kind of historic knitting that's been getting my wheels turning lately. These are all in the MFA in Boston, all just gorgeous to my mind. There are actually quite a few of the basket-y ones in the museum's collection, but these two are good representatives.

This one is English or French, from 1800-1830:



This one is German, and from about the same time:

This one is late 18th C Italian, and blew me away. All those flowers and leaves? They're knitted too, and then applied to the bag. There's another (somewhat plainer) one in the MFA too, that also has the knitted flowers.

The museum website doesn't give the gauges for the knitting, but I'm guessing 'tiny' is about right.