No. 262 Popcorn Diamond Bedspread (1915): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Heavy cotton crochet thread about size 3–5 — approximate; the book prints no thread for this design
• Steel or fine aluminium crochet hook — the book prints no hook for this design
• Tapestry needle
• Hook: Start with 2.25 mm (US steel 0/B-1) — approximate and not printed; change size to match the bed the spread is for

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

dc

double crochet

pc

popcorn

st

stitch

sts

stitches

sk

skip

rep

repeat

row

row

RS

right side

WS

wrong side

Notes before you start

• Source: "No. 262. Bedspread" (No. 262), 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: Popcorn (pc) is the book's own: 5 trebles (modern dc) in the same stitch, withdraw the hook, insert it in the top of the first treble and then in the fifth, thread over and draw through both stitches, chain 1 to tighten.
• 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 printed “pe” for popcorn is a scanning slip for “pc” and is written popcorn throughout.
• Modernisation note: The popcorn in Row 1 is printed stitch by stitch, as a group of four double crochet drawn together, which matches the book's own popcorn of five trebles less the chain; the printed working is kept word for word for that row.
• Modernisation note: The book's note that the popcorns on the even-numbered rows must be pushed through to the right side is kept in Row 2, where it is printed.
• Modernisation note: Check: no thread, hook or finished measurement is printed, and no fringe directions are given beyond where it goes.
• Modernisation note: Check: the excerpt below is taken from the foundation sentence rather than the opening line, because the opening line is broken by a hyphen across two printed lines in the scanned text.
• Modernisation note: Check: no colour is printed; the design photographs as white or ecru.
• Modernisation note: Metric conversions added where a measurement is printed.