Ayrshire needlework is a particularly fine and delicate kind of whitework embroidery on muslin or cotton lawn, hand-worked commercially by thousands of women in Ayrshire at the height of its popularity in the early to mid decades of the nineteenth century. Major characteristics are the inventive needlepoint and drawn thread fillings and the lightly stylised depiction of native flora – the women were known as Floo’erers (Flowerers). Being fine and lightweight, Ayrshire work was better suited to use in garments than to domestic applications such as table linen which required frequent heavy laundering; and among garments it is probably the christening robes which appeal most directly to modern tastes. Rather more than half of the catalogue is devoted to a detailed description of the christening robes in Mrs Bryson’s collection.