> OK, If it took 10 women, 10 years to make one of those shawls
Whoa....back. Think a bit. This is an old wives tale...exaggeration.
These lacemakers were proficient. They did this every day and were good at it. And the work day was longer than the modern worker has. Even if the shawl were 60 inches square (and most were less than that), that would be 3600 square inches. At an inch an hour (and they probably did better than that), it would take 3600 hours. At 12 hours a day, that's 300 days ---less than a year for one person alone. Ten ladies working together could probably produce one in a month.
The only thing I remember taking 10 years to make (other than neglected projects on some of our pillows) was an extremely large needlelace tablecloth ordered by a French Queen to be made by nuns in a convent. The number of ladies working on it, and the number of hours was not mentioned. By the time it was completed, the queen was dead and the new monarch didn't want the cloth. The convent was left with it.
Happy lacing, Alice in Oregon
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