This method has proven to be valuable because border details were overlooked when shawl designers wanted to copy older weavings or when revivalist influences motivated their reproduction. Irwin's theory does not take this into account and as a result relying exclusively on his criteria can skew the results. These copy shawls are now at least 150 years old or older and while they are old, they are not genuine examples of the period styles they represent. There are some published shawls attributed to the 17th century according to Irwin's methodology that can, in fact, be shown to be late 18th/early 19th century copies based border comparisons.

Why the crocus became the central element in the standard Classic period border when all signs point to it being the field design of Plate One is a curious fact. Plate One has a border but, unlike the identifiable sunflower and crocus flower in the other portions of this fragment, it contains only a small generic repeated sprig. Plate Two follows this pattern, an identifiable main design - a sunflower now pictured as a mature plant - and a border with another generic design - floral rosettes paired with what appears to be a somewhat misshapen leaf with one jagged edge.

These rosettes also are shown as part of the sunflower plant, one appears on the right below the large main blossom. Was this done to represent what was left of the sunflower core after all the petals had fallen off? It definitely looks that way, doesn't it.

This combination of a flower and leaf paves the way for the emergence of the standard Classic Period border(fig.18) - an identifiable crocus flower and leaf attached to a scrolling vine. Observing the slight but telling differences in these elements reveals as much or more about a shawl's age as the criteria in Irwin's theory. Plate Three and Four present two earlier transitional stage(figs.18a and b) leading to this convention. They introduce the scrolling vine but still use a generic, unidentifiable flower. Plate Five, the source of figure 18, is the key piece linking the earlier ECP shawls, like the first four Plates, with all the later LCP ones.

This border continuum remains inviolate throughout the Classic period and the respective changes the elements - crocus, leaf and scrolling vine - undergo conform to a highly reliable and chartable pattern. This reveals their relative chronological age as well as the suggested absolute ones. In the early part of the next period, the SFP, these progressive changes to the main element - the crocus - come full circle when an unidentifiable generic bloom(fig.18c) replaces it.

Sometime afterwards a completely new type of border with an array of several of the traditional shawl flowers(18d), which is woven on a silk rather than woolen warp, was introduced. Until circa 1800, when this survey ends, this more complex silk warp border style replaces the earlier versions and, like them, also exhibits progressive and chartable stylistic changes.

Plate Two, like Plate One, is depicted with a root-structure at the base of the plant (fig.19). This is very different from Plate One's dart-like root, which appears in comparison to be more far more life-like. In any event, the style of root depiction seen here should be considered the prototype for the small number of later shawls, occasionally even early 19th century ones, with this feature. Unlike the changes in border designs the presence of any root-structure, the lack of one or any possible variation does not denote a shawl's relative or absolute age as some other writers have suggested.