Mile-a-Minute Shell (1923): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 70 mercerized cotton crochet thread — approximate; the original was Clark's O. N. T. Mercerized Crochet, No. 70
• Steel crochet hook
• Tapestry needle for the ends
• Hook: Start with a 1.0 mm (US steel 11–12) hook — approximate. Change size until the edging lies flat.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

dc

double crochet

sp

space

ch-sp

chain space

st

stitch

sts

stitches

rep

repeat

row

row

sh

shell

Notes before you start

• Source: "Mile-a-Minute Shell", Clark's O. N. T. Designs for 100 Edges and Insertions, Book No. 19, The Clark Thread Co., Newark, N. J., 1923. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Clark's O. N. T. Mercerized Crochet, No. 70; Clark's O. N. T. Crochet Hook No. 13. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted by this book's own key (“INSTRUCTION PAGE”, book page 30), not by the look of the abbreviation. The key defines: St. stitch; Ch chain; Sk “Skip, pass by”; S c single crochet — “Draw a loop through stitch or chain directed (2 loops on needle), draw thread through both”, the modern US single crochet; D c double crochet — “Used most frequently in daisy petals or similar shapes. Thread over needle, draw loop through stitch directed (3 loops on needle), draw thread through all 3 at once”, which is the modern US HALF double crochet, not the modern double; Tr treble — “Thread over needle, draw loop through stitch directed (3 on needle), draw off two loops at a time, twice”, which is the modern US DOUBLE crochet; H tr half treble — “Make as above, leaving the last two loops on the needle, to be taken off later… the two loops are regarded as one”, the book's cluster-forming stitch; D tr double treble — “Thread over twice, thread through stitch (4 on needle), draw off two at a time, three times”, the modern US treble; Tr tr triple treble — “Thread over three times, draw off two at a time, four times”, the modern US double treble; Lg tr long treble — “Made like tr tr, with the thread over a given number of times”. So this 1923 book's treble names stand one step taller than modern US names. Every book tr is written dc here, every d tr is written tr, every tr tr is written dtr, and the book's d c is written hdc. This is a genuine finding rather than an assumption: 1920s books often do use modern US terms, but this one does not, and the key's own working definitions are what settle it.
• 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” = yo; “skip” = sk; “catch” = sl st or join, according to what the row is doing; “Repeat from *” = rep from *; st(s) = st(s); sp = sp. The book's OCR prints the ordinal “1st” as “Ist” throughout and that quirk is kept in the excerpts but 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”, “3rd row”) are written Row 1, Row 2, Row 3, and the book's word “row” is kept even where the work goes around.
• Modernisation note: Clark's O. N. T. Mercerized Crochet numbers are read as roughly equal to the modern crochet thread sizes of the same number — approximate only.
• Modernisation note: The Clark's O. N. T. crochet hook numbers printed here are 1923 maker's steel-hook numbers and do not map onto the modern US steel scale, so any metric hook suggested here is ours, read across from the thread size; the printed hook number is recorded in the original materials.
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design — the book prints no gauge, tension or mesh count anywhere. Work a sample and change hook size until the edging lies flat.
• Modernisation note: No finished measurement is printed for this design; it is worked to the length of the piece it trims, so its length is set by that piece.
• Modernisation note: Check: no colour is printed for this design. The plates photograph as a plain light thread, and the book's own ad pages list Clark's O. N. T. Mercerized Crochet in White and in colours.
• Modernisation note: No yardage is printed for this design. The book's back-cover table (book page 30 of the printed numbering) gives ball yields for ten designs only, and this is not one of them, so no yardage is given here.
• Modernisation note: Check: the OCR of Row 2 prints “over 2-ch make 3 tr, ch 1, 9 itr, and 1 tr in 2nd ch after tr”. The “9 itr” is a garble: the page image shows a second group matching the first, so the reading is “3 dc, ch 1, 3 dc”. The excerpt keeps the OCR as it stands and this note carries the corrected reading. If a worker prefers the literal OCR, the shell would be lopsided, which the photograph on the same page contradicts.
• Modernisation note: Check: the OCR prints “2nd row—TLurn” — a broken “Turn”.