Ring Loop Crochet Edging for Curtains (1854): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Cotton crochet thread about size 10 (period: crochet cotton No. 10; approximate) for curtains, or Cotton crochet thread about size 30 (period: crochet cotton No. 30; approximate) for dress trimming
• Sewing needle and thread for the buttonhole bars
• Hook: Start with a 2 mm (US steel 4) hook and adjust to suit your thread (original: crochet hook No. 14, eagle card-board gauge; approximate conversion). No gauge is printed. For No. 30 cotton the book gives hook No. 19 (about 1.1 mm, US steel 11).

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

row

row

sk

skip

rep

repeat

Notes before you start

• Source: "Crochet Edging", The Ladies' Complete Guide to Crochet, Fancy Knitting, and Needlework (Mrs. Ann S. Stephens), Dick & Fitzgerald, 1854. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: For dress trimmings, No. 30 Crochet cotton, with crochet hook No. 19, will be suitable; or even finer cotton may be used.; But this pattern being particularly suitable for trimming curtains and so forth, I recommend Crochet cotton, No. 10, and steel crochet hook, No. 14.. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitch names checked against the book's own definitions (pp. 22–23), which describe the same stitches as modern US terms, so they are kept: “ch.” = ch; “sl.” / “slip” = sl st; “sc.” = sc; “dc.” = dc (US, not UK); “tc.” (treble crochet) = tr; “l tc.” / “long tc.” (long treble crochet) = dtr; “miss” = sk. Note that the book's “tc.” is a modern US tr, not a UK treble (US dc).
• Modernisation note: Period wording modernised: “needle” (meaning the hook) → hook; “commence” → begin; “close for a loop”, “close in a round” and “form it into a round” → join into a ring (the book does not name the joining stitch unless it says “slip”); “under” a chain → in the ch-sp; “fasten off” → FO; “alternative” → alternate. Repeat marks (✕, +, *, †, ¶, (a)) are written as parentheses with the book's total count.
• Modernisation note: Printed paragraphs split into one step per row, round or instruction; no stitches, counts, rows or rounds added, removed or reordered.
• Modernisation note: Crochet hook numbers belong to the book's “eagle card-board gauge”, a period bell-type gauge in which higher numbers are finer. The metric and US sizes given are approximate conversions only, and no gauge is printed.
• Modernisation note: Period cotton numbers (Evans's crochet cotton and “boar's-head” cotton) do not match modern thread sizes exactly; the modern thread size is a starting approximation. Choose the thread that suits the hook and gives lace of the right fineness.
• Modernisation note: No yardage or weight of thread is printed for this design, and none is estimated.
• Modernisation note: Row numbering as printed: the book numbers the heading rows 3rd to 6th, so the ring row counts as rows 1 and 2 (the two sides of the rings).
• Modernisation note: Check: the book does not say from which end the 6th ch is counted; with ch 15 and the 5 ch “between every five” rings, the join is read as leaving the first chains as the space before the group.
• Modernisation note: Check: “Begun at the same place as the last” (row 3) is not explained further; rows 3–6 are worked along the side of the rings with 8 sc.
• Modernisation note: The book notes that the size depends wholly on the materials used.