No. 200 Centerpiece Medallion (1915): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 30 mercerized cotton crochet thread — approximate; the book prints no thread for this design
• Steel crochet hook — the book prints no hook for this design
• Linen for the centre
• Tapestry needle and sewing thread
• Hook: Start with 1.3 mm (US steel 10) — approximate and not printed; change size until the medallion lies flat

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

tr

treble crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

sk

skip

rep

repeat

rnd

round

sh

shell

Notes before you start

• Source: "No. 200. Centerpiece" (No. 200), Clark's Crochet Book, Miller-Clark Designing Company, St. Joseph, Missouri, 1915. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Linen center. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted by this book's own key (“Key to Terms Used in This Book”, book page 2), not by name. The key defines: chain (ch); slip stitch (sl-st), drawing the thread through the stitch and the loop on the needle without throwing thread over; “double (d)” — put the needle through the work, draw a stitch through (2 on the needle), thread over and draw through both, which is the modern US single crochet; “treble (tr)” — thread over, put the needle through, draw a stitch through (3 on the needle), thread over and draw through 2, thread over and draw through the 2 remaining, which is the modern US double crochet; “double treble (dtr)” — thread over twice, cast off three times, the modern US treble; “triple treble (ttr)” — thread over three times, cast off four times, the modern US double treble. So throughout this transcription d = sc, tr = dc, dtr = tr and ttr = dtr. This book is one of the 1915 US books that uses the older British heights, so its “treble” must not be read as a modern treble.
• Modernisation note: The book's shorthand is written in modern US form: ch = ch, sl-st = sl st, d = sc, tr = dc, dtr = tr, ttr = dtr, p = picot, pc = popcorn, cl = cluster, st(s) = st(s); “miss” = sk; “thread over (the hook)” = yo; “join” at the end of a circuit = sl st to join. Ordinal row names (“1st Row”, “2nd Row”) are written Row 1, Row 2 and so on; where the book calls a circuit of a piece worked in the round a “row”, it is written Rnd and the change is noted in the section heading.
• Modernisation note: Picot (p) is the book's own: chain 3, 4 or 5 as you like, insert the hook in the first of those chains, thread over and draw through the chain stitch and the stitch on the hook. A triple picot is three picots in succession. Picots are written out as picots, with the book's chain count wherever it is printed.
• Modernisation note: Long printed paragraphs are split into one row, round or step per line; stitch order and counts are unchanged. Section headings added for navigation.
• Modernisation note: No thread and no hook are printed for this design, so the sizes suggested in the modern materials are ours and are a starting point only. The book names No. 30 crochet cotton wherever it names a thread at all, and that is the basis of the suggestion.
• Modernisation note: Hooks are printed only as steel hook numbers (No. 8, No. 10 and No. 11 are the only ones named in the book) with no diameters, so no exact metric size can be read from it. The metric sizes given are approximate starting points read across to the modern US steel-hook scale, in which a higher number is finer; work a swatch and change size to match the photograph.
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design — the book prints no gauge anywhere. Work a swatch and change hook size until the work lies flat and matches the photograph.
• Modernisation note: The book names a thread for only a handful of designs, always as “No. 30 thread”, “No. 30 mercerized crochet cotton” or “knitting cotton”, and prints no yardage anywhere. The modern equivalents given here are approximations only: No. 30 crochet cotton reads as modern size 30 mercerized cotton crochet thread; “knitting cotton” reads as a heavier cotton crochet thread about size 3–5. No yardage is estimated, because none is printed.
• Modernisation note: The book calls the medallion's circuits “rows”; they are worked back and forth along the fan with a solid single crochet block at one side, and are written Rnd here because the book numbers them as one continuous sequence.
• Modernisation note: Check: Rnds 2 to 5 are printed as a single sentence with no stitch-by-stitch working, only the target of 88 single crochet in the 5th round; that is all the book gives.
• Modernisation note: Check: several rounds are printed with the chain count run together (“ch85”, “chd”, “ch5d”, “8d”, “8tr”); these are read as ch 5 and 3 sc / 3 dc to match the rounds either side, where the sense is plain. Work a round at a time and check against the photograph.
• Modernisation note: Check: how the four medallions are joined to each other and to the linen is not printed.
• Modernisation note: Check: no colour is printed; the design photographs as white or ecru.
• Modernisation note: No finished measurement is printed for this design.
• Modernisation note: Metric conversions added where a measurement is printed.