"You know, lace was something only nobility was allowed to wear," Wahneta Dunn explained as she showed off her pizza box filled with lace made by her mother and herself.

It made me realize how very much a part of the American experience the democratizing of lace was.

But on the flip side of things. European lacemakers, rather than being honored, used to be virtual prisoners, living their entire lives within the confines of the workshop, to protect their masters' designs from being stolen. Wahneta told me the story of one of her students whose mother used to make lace in Europe. When she came to America, she refused to teach her daughter, because it was a reminder of her servitude. Only after her mother passed away was she free to learn the art.

All lace is made from single strands of thread. To say it so simply, can't possibly capture the wonder of watching Wahneta's deft fingers flitting about creating loops and knots until, suddenly, she has a butterfly or series of flowers flowing from her hands.

Wahneta's speciality is tatting, in which the lace is made up of different forms of slip knots. One of the reasons she prefers tatting to other methods is that it is the only kind of lace machines can't duplicate.

Tatting reminds me of Native American finger weaving, in the way that Wahneta winds the thread around her fingers in a very precise pattern.

The thread is then fed through the loops on a shuttle (the blue tool in her right hand in this picture).

Through the centuries, tatting shuttles have been made of all kinds of materials -- ivory, tortoise shell, porcelain, wood, mother of pearl. Some were carved, inlaid, painted. However, the one thing they all have in common is a smoothness that fits the hand in a most sensual manner. When Wahneta gave me one to hold, I had a sense memory of the way worry beads almost demand to play along your skin.

This photo depicts a tiny fraction of Wahneta's large collection of shuttles.

One of the prides of Wahneta's collection is this Lydia Pinkham shuttle.

Another important aspect of the American experience has been the advertising give-away gimmick. Lydia Pinkham was a type of patent medicine -- tonics that were supposed to cure all kinds of aliments, but whose primary ingredient was usually alcohol. That a tatting shuttle was used as an advertising premium is a clear indication of how popular tatting was in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Another important tool that Wahneta uses is a miniscule crochet hook. (You can see it on a chain around her neck in the above portrait.)

"Actually, Sally, this one isn't that small. You should see how tiny some of them are."

Wahneta uses it to pull threads through existing loops, and work the chains of knots into connected patterns.

Because the lace is made up of slip knots, if she makes a mistake, she has to use an even tinier pin to pull it all apart and start over again.

As you can imagine, Wahneta's children and grandchildren have been adorned with lace almost from birth.

While we have no nobility here in the United States, lace itself does lend a nobility of beauty to our lives -- for all of us.

This is one of the christening bonnets Wahneta made for one of her grandchildren.