Lace Made With Feather-Edge Braid (1891): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Crochet cotton — the book prints no size; the section's own general remarks name white, unbleached and écru crochet cotton and linen thread
• Steel crochet hook to suit the thread
• Tapestry needle for the ends
• Feather-edge braid — the book prints no width or quantity
• Hook: Check: the book prints no hook number for any design in this section, so no modern hook can be read across from a printed size. Match the hook to whatever thread you choose, and change size until the edging lies flat.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

rep

repeat

sp

space

lp

loop

row

row

Notes before you start

• Source: "Lace Made With Feather-Edge Braid" (No. 16), The Art of Crocheting, The Butterick Publishing Co. (Limited), London and New York, 1891. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Feather-edge braid (the book prints no width, brand or quantity); Crochet thread — not printed. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted by this book's own printed definitions (the STITCHES section, book pages 6, 7 and 8, images p-010.jpg and p-011.jpg), not by the look of the abbreviation. Despite the 1891 date this book uses MODERN US names throughout. Its “Single Crochet” (No. 8, page 6) is: “Draw a loop through a stitch of the foundation; throw the thread over the hook and draw through both loops on the hook at once.” That is the modern US single crochet. Its “Double Crochet” (No. 6, page 6) is: “Throw the thread over the hook and take up a loop through a stitch of the foundation; throw the thread over again and draw through two of the three loops now on the hook; throw the thread over once more, and draw through the two remaining loops.” That is the modern US double crochet, not a single. Its “Half-Double Crochet” (page 7) is: “Throw the thread over the hook and take up a stitch of the foundation or work; throw the thread over again, and draw through all three loops on the hook together.” That is the modern US half double. Its “Treble Crochet” (page 7) is: “made the same as double crochet, except that the thread is thrown around the hook twice before the foundation stitch is taken up; and in working off, the thread is thrown over the hook three times, being drawn through two stitches each time as before.” That is the modern US treble. Its “Slip Stitch” (No. 5, page 6) is: “After a foundation is made insert the hook in each stitch and draw the thread through it and loop on the hook together.” So this book's s. c., d. c., h. d. c. and tr. c. are written sc, dc, hdc and tr here with no shift of height — a genuine finding checked against the printed definitions rather than assumed from the date, and the opposite of what the 1913/1915/1916 Priscilla books do.
• Modernisation note: The book repeats the key as an abbreviation table at the head of the section these designs come from, “ABBREVIATIONS USED IN CROCHET INSTRUCTIONS”, book page 16 (image p-020.jpg): “l. — Loop. ch. st. — Chain stitch. s. c. — Single crochet. d. c. — Double crochet. h. d. c. — Half double crochet. tr. c. — Treble crochet. p. — Picot. sl. st. — Slip stitch.” The book adds that it has “avoided resorting to its use as far as possible, in order that our instructions may be as clear to the beginner as to the adept”, which is why most designs here spell the stitches out in words and only a few use the letters. Both forms are written in modern shorthand in the rows below.
• Modernisation note: The book's wording is written in modern US form: “make” a chain = ch; “catch” = sl st or join, according to what the row is doing; “throw the thread over the hook” = yo; “pick up a loop” = pull up a loop; “skip” = sk; “needle” and “hook” both mean the hook and are written hook; “underneath” means the previous row and is kept; “repeat from *” = rep from *. Ordinal row names (“First row.”, “Second row.”, “Third row.”) are written Row 1, Row 2, Row 3. The book's spelling “scollop” is kept in the design names as printed and written scallop in the rows.
• Modernisation note: The printed directions run as solid paragraphs, most of them without any row numbering at all — the book marks new rows only with the word “turn”. They are split here into one row or step per line at the book's own “turn”, and the book's own sub-headings (For the Heading, For the Lower Edge, To make the Picots, To make the Scollop and so on) are kept as section headings. Stitch order and counts are unchanged and nothing is added.
• Modernisation note: The scanned text of this 1891 book carries the usual optical-reading slips and every figure below was read back against the page image: the scan's “Toth” is 16th, its “gth” is 4th or 9th according to the sequence, its “roth” is 10th, its “Sth” is 8th, its “§” before a number is the figure 5, its “ting” is ring, its “neat” and “nevt” are next, its “1g ch.” is 14 ch., its “chain of 4g ©” is a chain of 9, and its “t” and “+” standing before a stitch name are the figure 1. The rows below follow what the printed page actually shows.
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design; the book prints no gauge, tension or mesh count anywhere. Work a sample and change hook size until the edging lies flat.
• Modernisation note: No finished measurement is printed for this design. It is worked to the length of the piece it trims, so its length is set by that piece.
• Modernisation note: Check: no colour is printed for this design. The engravings photograph as a plain light thread. The book's general remarks name white, unbleached and écru crochet cotton and linen thread as the usual choices for its laces; that is recorded here as the book's own range, not as this design's colour.
• Modernisation note: No yardage is printed for this design, and none is estimated here — the book gives no thread size to estimate from.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book names feather-edge braid but prints no width, no brand and no length. Nothing is invented here; buy the braid to suit the thread and work to the length wanted.
• Modernisation note: Check: Row 3 says the picots are “caught as illustrated”. The catching point is shown in the engraving, not stated in words; that is noted rather than guessed at. Every other row is fully worded, which is why the design is transcribed rather than skipped.
• Modernisation note: This design begins the run the book heads “Popular Edgings and Insertions Made of Crochet Work and Fancy and Lace Braids” in its table of contents, though the braid designs are scattered through the edgings section too.