I stumbled across this recently and am amazed, fascinated, and dazzled. Check out this blog post about a group project that evolved from a question on Ravelry – a knitter reverse-engineered an historic Shetland lace shawl and a group of Ravelry knitter undertook the test knitting so the pattern could be made available:

Fleegle on the Queen Susan Shawl

Isn’t that the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen? And a great story, too.

I think I need to both live longer and knit faster to knit all the projects I want to knit!