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ld began to introduce imaginative suggestions of the domestic background of the Holy Family. A few of them show Mary knitting’ (1987, p.57). Depicting Mary as the ideal mother figure and therefore showing her knitting, subsequently providing clothes for her family and a means to keep warm, portrays Mary as a domestic goddess. This shows how valuable knitting was to this era that they would show a religious figure knitting without the general public thinking it was blasphemous and black listing the artist. Instead they saw it as someone to look up to and aspire to be, by knitting for their family. In the 16th Century the popularity of knitting peaked again. Jonas B. Aiken’s book ‘Treatise on the Art of Knitting’ speaks of the first pair of silk knit stockings in England and there subsequent effect on a nation, ‘…Queen Elizabeth…was presented by her silk woman with a pair of black silk knit stockings…and was so delighted with them as to never wear those made of cloth afterwards’ (1861, p.5). Aiken’s goes on to say, ‘So highly was the new fabric esteemed, that it immediately went into general use. Knitting became fashionable in every circle of society…it was eagerly and ambitiously learned and practised in princely halls and royal palaces’. At this time the royal family and wealthy aristocrats were the only celebrity the general public had. They loved hearing gossip about them and told their life stories to each other. Anything the royals they looked up to had the people wanted. Therefore when Queen Elizabeth loved her knitted silk stockings everyone else wanted them too and took up knitting to create their own. Suddenly knitting was fashionable and everyone from servants to aristocrats were finding value in knitting as a route to the higher classes. Elsewhere in Europe in the 17th and 18th Century knitting techniques progressed substantially. For instance, in Scotland colour development lead to the invention of the Fair Isle technique. Simultaneously in Ireland, on the Aran Isles, cable knitting of jumpers was developed by fishermen’s wives for their husbands to wear while out at sea. The technique added bulk to their sweaters, keeping them warm in the harsh Irish weather. In ‘Knitting America, A Glorious Heritage from Warm Socks to High Art’ by Melanie Falick and Susan M. Strawn, states, ‘The handknitted garments of these rustic people have developed a significance beyond their primary function of protecting the wearer against biting ocean winds…their elaborate patterns speak…of love, home, faith and work – the simple threads which form the fabric of Aran life’ (2011, p.184). This shows that each country in Europe had developed knitting in their own way as a response to that country’s wants and needs. Then came the Industrial Revolution and with it came knitting machines. This era saw knitting pushed into machine-made manufacturing, and suppliers opened factories and exported around the world. Even though machine knitting was in demand, hand knitting did not go out of fashion as the quality of hand knitting far outweighed the quality of machine knitting according to Lisa Bogart in ‘Knit with Love: Stories to Warm a Knitter's Heart’, ‘The hand-knit versions were superior to the machine-made socks of the time’(2011, p.38). So even the Industrial Revolution which destroyed most traditional crafts could not