Crocheted Doily, Six Inches (1916): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 80 mercerized cotton crochet thread — approximate; the original was Clark's O. N. T. Six Cord Mercerized Crochet Cotton No. 80
• Steel crochet hook
• Tapestry needle for the ends
• Hook: Start with about 0.9 mm (US steel 12–13) — approximate and ours, not printed. Change size until the work lies flat.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sl st

slip stitch

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

tr

treble crochet

ps

puff stitch

st

stitch

sts

stitches

rep

repeat

sk

skip

sp

space

rnd

round

row

row

inc

increase

tog

together

Notes before you start

• Source: "Directions for Making Crocheted Doily", Clark's O. N. T. Book of Needlework, The Clark Thread Company, Newark, New Jersey, 1916. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Clark's O. N. T. Six Cord Mercerized Crochet Cotton No. 80; Milward's Needle No. 14. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted by this book's own key, read for this book and not assumed from the brand or the year. The abbreviation list is printed on book page 41 under “Abbreviations Used in Crocheting” — “st = stitch; ch = chain stitch; sl st = slip stitch; sc = single crochet; dc = double crochet; tr c = treble crochet; p = picot; d = dot; w st = wound stitch; m = meshes”, with a star that “Means to repeat directions printed between them as many times as stated in each case.” The stitches are then defined in words on book page 42: Single Crochet — “Insert the hook in the foundation chain and draw thread through, catch thread around hook and draw through both loops on hook”, the modern US single crochet; Double Crochet — “Catch thread around hook, insert in chain, draw thread through; catch thread around hook, draw through two loops, thread around hook and draw through last two loops. Always start a d c row with 3 ch in place of the first dc”, the modern US DOUBLE crochet; Treble Crochet — “The treble crochet is made similarly to the double crochet. Start with 4 ch and take thread twice over needle, drawing three times through two”, the modern US treble. So this 1916 book uses modern US heights and no re-lettering is needed: its dc is written dc and its tr c is written tr. This matters because the same firm's 1923 Book No. 19 does the opposite, printing “D c” for a modern half double and “Tr” for a modern double; the two books were checked separately and do not agree.
• Modernisation note: The book's wording is written in modern US form: “needle” and “hook” both mean the hook and are written hook; “thread over needle” = yo; “skip” = sk; “catch”/“fasten” at the end of a circuit = sl st or join, according to what the row is doing; the book's star ★ is written * and “repeat from ★” = rep from *; tr c = tr; sh st = shell stitch. The OCR of this scan prints the ordinal “1st” as “Ist” and the letters c/e interchangeably in places (“de” for “dc”, “se” for “sc”); those quirks are kept in the excerpts and not in the rows.
• Modernisation note: The printed paragraphs are split into one row, round or step per line; stitch order and counts are unchanged. Section headings added for navigation. Ordinal row names (“1st row”, “2nd row”) are written Row 1, Row 2, and the book's word “row” is kept even where the work goes around, as the book itself does.
• Modernisation note: Clark's O. N. T. crochet cotton numbers are read as roughly equal to the modern crochet thread sizes of the same number — approximate only. The book's own Table of Cotton and Hook Sizes on book page 41 pairs Clark's O. N. T. Crochet Cotton Nos. 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 100 with Milward's Crochet Hooks Nos. 1 to 14 in that order, and that table is what ties each design's printed hook number to its printed thread.
• Modernisation note: The Milward's hook numbers printed here are 1916 maker's numbers and do not map onto the modern US steel scale, so any metric hook suggested below is ours, read across from the thread size and not printed in the book; the printed hook number is kept in the original materials. The book's own advice on page 41 is to test first: “it is wise to do a little experimenting with the cotton and needle in the sizes suggested in the directions in order to determine that the needle really is the correct size for each individual worker.”
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design. The book prints a stitch count per inch for its two filet yokes only, and those are the squared-diagram designs that are not transcribed here. Work a sample and change hook size until the work lies flat and matches the photograph.
• Modernisation note: No yardage is printed for this design. The book gives ball counts only for the baby jacket and cap, and no yardage anywhere, so none is estimated here.
• Modernisation note: Picot (p) is the book's own, defined on book page 42: “Make a chain of three or four st as indicated in directions; throw cotton over hook, insert hook into first ch st made and make a single crochet.” The chain count is kept wherever the design prints one.
• Modernisation note: The book prints the finished diameter for this doily — six inches — and calls it “of a suitable size for finger bowl or bread and butter plate”. The metric conversion, about 15 cm, is ours; the printed figure is kept.
• Modernisation note: Check: no colour is printed for this design. It photographs as a plain light thread, and the book's own O. N. T. Articles pages list Clark's O. N. T. crochet cottons in white and in colours.
• Modernisation note: The book's own instructions for enlarging are printed and are kept out of the row list because they are not a row: to make the pattern larger for a plate doily or centerpiece, first increase the number of plain sc rows forming the centre, then work on the same as in the doily, only make two or more bands of the triple crochet pattern (Rows 17, 18 and 19) instead of only one, separating these bands by the open work rows same as in the pattern shown.
• Modernisation note: The book also prints a linen-centre variant: a linen centre may be used in place of the plain single crochet stitch, beginning the doily with the twelfth row and taking the stitches right into the hemmed edge of the linen.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book's set sizes are printed as guidance, not as directions — “a set consists of six doilies each of plate and tumbler size with a medium size centerpiece, say twenty or twenty-two inches in diameter”, with six bread-and-butter doilies and two oval mats optional. Only the six-inch doily has printed rows, so only it is transcribed.
• Modernisation note: Check: Row 12 closes “with sl st taken in to 3 ch made at beginning” although the row opens with ch 4. The discrepancy is in the print; it is transcribed as printed and not silently corrected.
• Modernisation note: Check: the “joined” trebles of Rows 13, 17, 18, 19 and 23 are the book's own — “The trebles are joined on top by slipping off together”, which is the page-43 dot worked in trebles. That gloss is printed in Row 13 and referred back to by the later rows, exactly as here.
• Modernisation note: Check: Row 24 refers back to “the 3rd ch of 22nd row” while working over the ch-5 loops of Row 23. That back-reference is printed and is kept; it was checked against image p-072.jpg.