No. 261 Square Yoke with Spider Webs (1915): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 30 mercerized cotton crochet thread — approximate; the book prints no thread for this design, and names No. 30 crochet cotton for the designs where it does print one
• Steel crochet hook — the book prints no hook for this design
• Tapestry needle
• Hook: Start with 1.3 mm (US steel 10) — approximate and not printed; change size until the work lies flat and matches the photograph

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

tr

treble crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

sk

skip

rep

repeat

row

row

sp

space

Notes before you start

• Source: "No. 261. Square Yoke" (No. 261), Clark's Crochet Book, Miller-Clark Designing Company, St. Joseph, Missouri, 1915. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Not given. 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: The book's general note is followed — “where star is found, do not repeat except as per directions given farther on in work” — so an asterisk marks a place to come back to and a repeat is worked only where the directions call for it.
• 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 stitch the book calls dtr in the neck edge is its double treble, which is the modern treble, and is written tr.
• Modernisation note: Rows 18 to 55 and Rows 60 to 70 are printed only as running instructions rather than row by row, and are kept in that form.
• Modernisation note: The book's own warning is worth keeping in view: it says “You will find the work on the yoke illustrated does not correspond with these directions in every detail. These directions work out correctly.”
• Modernisation note: Check: the book does not print the number of webs across the back, only that they are set with 5 open squares between.
• 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.