Shell and Loop Edge for Bath Towels No. 5 (1916): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 30 mercerized cotton crochet thread — approximate; the book prints only “No. 30 mercerized crochet cotton”, with no brand
• Steel crochet hook
• Tapestry needle for the ends
• A bath towel with a hem to work into
• Hook: Start with a 1.25 mm (US steel 8) hook — approximate, and ours: the book prints no hook size for this design. 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

st

stitch

sts

stitches

sk

skip

sh

shell

lp

loop

rep

repeat

row

row

Notes before you start

• Source: "Edges for Bath Towels, No. 5" (5), The Elite Instruction Book, Pierre C. Brin, Chicago, Ill., 1916. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: No. 30 shaded mercerized cotton 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 the first row's length is set by the towel and not by a stitch count.
• Modernisation note: Check: the last row of this design is the clearest single piece of evidence in the book for the stitch ladder — “1 s c, 1 d c, 6 t c, 1 d c, 1 s c, over each loop” is a graduated shell that climbs single to double to t c and back down, with no rung between, which is what shows the book's t c to be the modern US treble rather than something taller.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book says “repeat * for 3 rows”, which means Row 2 is worked three times over; that is written out above rather than left as a bare repeat.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book names one thread only, a shaded cotton to match the towel, and no white.