Hem Loop Edge for Bath Towels No. 3 (1916): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 5 perle cotton in white and in a colour to match the towel — the book prints only “Perle cotton No. 5”, with no brand
• Steel or fine aluminium crochet hook
• Embroidery needle for the featherstitching
• A bath towel with a hem to work into
• Hook: Start with a 1.75 mm (US steel 4–5) hook — approximate, and ours: the book prints no hook size for this design. Change size until the edge lies flat against the hem.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sl st

slip stitch

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

sp

space

ch-sp

chain space

st

stitch

sts

stitches

sk

skip

rep

repeat

row

row

Notes before you start

• Source: "Edges for Bath Towels, No. 3" (3), The Elite Instruction Book, Pierre C. Brin, Chicago, Ill., 1916. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Perle cotton No. 5. White and color to match towel; A towel with a hem to work into. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted from this book's own designs, not from a printed key and not from the date. The book prints NO abbreviation list anywhere: all sixteen printed pages are design pages, and none of them carries a key, a glossary or a stitch definition, so the ladder had to be read off the directions. The book names only three heights — s c, d c and t c — and nothing taller than t c appears in it. s c is the modern US single crochet. d c is the modern US double crochet: nine designs open a row “1 d c into the fourth st” (book pages 9, 10 and 11), the modern convention of a 3-chain turning chain worked into the 4th chain, and the filet foundation on book page 7 chains 42 for “1 d c into the 8th st, 11 sp”, three chains a mesh, which is the double-crochet filet formula. t c is the modern US treble, the next step up, and is written tr below; the book opens it with 5 chains rather than the modern 4, which is its own generosity and not a taller stitch — the Yoke for Corset Cover No. 2 joins its opening “8 ch sts” at the 5th chain, and the book has no fourth name to give the step above t c, while its graduated shell “1 s c, 1 d c, 6 t c, 1 d c, 1 s c” (book page 10, No. 5) climbs single to double to t c with no rung between. Note that Clark's 1923 book in this same collection abbreviates “D c” for a stitch that is the modern half double — the identical-looking abbreviation means a different stitch there, which is why this book's ladder was checked against its own pages rather than carried across.
• Modernisation note: The book's wording is written in modern US form: “ch sts” = ch; “s c” = sc; “d c” = dc; “t c” = tr; “sl st” = sl st; “sps” = spaces; “p” = picot; “gr” = group; “sk” = sk. “Break thread” is written fasten off, and “catch” is written join or work into according to what the row is doing. Ordinal row names (“First Row”, “Second Row”) are written Row 1, Row 2, and the book's “repeat *” is written rep from *.
• Modernisation note: The printed paragraphs are split into one row or step per line; stitch order and counts are unchanged. Section headings are added for navigation. The OCR of this scan is rough: it prints “d c” variously as “dc”, “de”, “d ec” and “d ¢”, sets “1 s c” as “1s c”, prints “No.” as “No,” and drops whole words at the column breaks. Those quirks are kept in the excerpts and not in the rows.
• Modernisation note: The book names a thread by maker's number only (for example “No. 30 mercerized crochet cotton”), with no brand. Those numbers are read as roughly equal to the modern crochet cotton sizes of the same number — approximate only.
• Modernisation note: No hook size is printed for this design. The only hook numbers anywhere in the book are the “No. 5 steel hook” and “No. 3 steel hook” given for the Cake and Sherbet Serving Set on book page 2, which is not among these patterns, so any metric hook suggested here is ours, read across from the thread size rather than from the page.
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design — the book prints no gauge, tension or stitch count per inch anywhere. Work a sample and change hook size until the piece lies flat.
• Modernisation note: Check: this is an edging, so its length is set by the piece it trims; the book prints no length and leaves the number of repeats to the worker.
• Modernisation note: No finished measurement is printed for this design.
• Modernisation note: No yardage is printed for this design. The book gives ball counts for a few pieces only, and where it does they are recorded above as printed; no length in yards or metres appears anywhere in the book.
• Modernisation note: Check: this edge is worked directly into the hem of the towel, so its first row's spacing is set by the hem and not by a stitch count. The book gives the spacing as “leave space of 5 ch sts on hem”, which is kept above.
• Modernisation note: Check: the OCR of this design is badly broken — it reads “3 ch sts, 3 d ec into first ch st, * 1d ¢ leave space / 1 sts on hem, catch dc, make 4 dc over this dc, / at ir 2 rows of white and one row of color. / he h hem with color.” The page image (images/p-12.jpg) reads “Fasten white thread into hem, 1 s c, 3 ch sts, 3 d c into first ch st, * 1 d c leave space of 5 ch sts on hem, catch d c, make 4 d c over this d c, repeat * for 2 rows of white and one row of color. Featherstitch hem with color.” That is the reading used above, including the opening “1 s c” that the OCR lost entirely.
• Modernisation note: Check: the featherstitching is embroidery, not crochet.
• Modernisation note: Check: every tall stitch here is the book's d c, the modern US double crochet.