Netting is a handicraft, so ancient that it would be difficult to trace it to its origin, or determine the date of its invention. There is evidence to show that the making of nets for fishing and game catching was as familiar to the earlier races of mankind as it is to us.
Practised in the first instance for the wants of life, it by degrees developed into an art, in conjunction with embroidery, to which it was made to serve as a foundation. The netting of every country, almost, has a distinctive character of its own: that of Persia is known by its fine silken meshes and rich gold and silver embroidery; that of Italy, by the varied size and shape of its meshes and a resemblance in the style of its embroidery to the Punto tagliato; whilst the netting of France, known by the name of Cluny guipure, consists of a groundwork of fine meshes with stiff close designs embroidered upon it, outlined in coarse glazed thread.
Netting, which divides itself under two headings, netting proper, or plain netting and net embroidery, has never yet gone out of fashion and places are still to be found where the entire population is engaged in this industry.
Plain netting and the implements used in netting (figs. [611], [612], [613]).—Plain netting consists of loops, secured and rendered independent of one another by knots. For forming and tightening these loops and knots the following implements are necessary; in the first place, a netting needle; these are generally made of steel, split and flattened at both ends, with a hole bored through them below the fork at the one end, in which the thread, fig. [611], is secured, before it is wound on lengthwise between the forks. They are numbered as to size like knitting needles. There are netting needles likewise of bone, ivory, wood and tortoise-shell for twine and thick materials; these are without hole, fig. [612].
Fig. 611. Netting needle of steel.
Fig. 612. Netting needle of ivory.
The thread must be wound on very tightly, and not too much of it at a time, that the needle may slip easily through the loops. The mesh, or spool, fig. [613], whether of ivory, bone, steel or wood, should be smooth and round and of the same thickness throughout, so that the loops, made upon it, may be all of one size and easily slipped off.
