No. 256 Mat Cover in Knitting Cotton (1915): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Heavy cotton crochet thread about size 3–5 — approximate; the original was “knitting cotton”
• Steel or fine aluminium crochet hook — the book prints no hook for this design
• Narrow elastic or twill tape for the back
• A heatproof pad to fit
• Tapestry needle and sewing thread
• Hook: Start with 2.25 mm (US steel 0/B-1) — approximate and not printed; change size until the mat lies flat

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sl st

slip stitch

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

sk

skip

rep

repeat

rnd

round

Notes before you start

• Source: "No. 256. Mat Cover" (No. 256), Clark's Crochet Book, Miller-Clark Designing Company, St. Joseph, Missouri, 1915. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: To Be Made of Knitting Cotton.; Rubber tape (sewn across the back to hold the asbestos pad in place). 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: 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 mat's circuits “rows”; they are worked in the round and are written Rnd here.
• Modernisation note: The original's asbestos pad is replaced in the modern materials by a plain heatproof pad; asbestos is not used today.
• Modernisation note: Check: Rnd 1 says “Ch3 for first tr. 22tr into ring”, which gives 23 stitches counting the chain-3, and Rnd 2 then works “22tr with 1ch between” over them; the printed counts are kept as they stand.
• Modernisation note: Check: no hook is printed, and “knitting cotton” is a weight rather than a size, so the suggested thread and hook are ours.
• 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.