embroidery worked in white thread on white material, originated in India and China and popular in the West since the Middle Ages as decoration for personal, table, and various church linens. Especially favoured in the 15th century as embellishment for underclothing, whitework, sometimes known as filet lace, a forerunner of real lace, was crafted by mounting strips of fine-gauge mesh in light wire frames and embroidering them for use as edgings and insertions.

The two main types are “open,” in which holes are drawn or cut in fabric and then overcast, and “close,” which is worked flat as in ordinary embroidery. Ayrshire whitework, a popular open type, was used mainly for dress materials in England and on the European continent from the late 1700s and relied on a buttonhole stitch to form geometrical or regularized flower patterns.