Irish Lace Collar on a Braid Heading (1915): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 60 mercerized cotton crochet thread — approximate; the book prints only “No. 60 thread”
• Steel crochet hook (original: No. 11 hook)
• Lace braid 12 in (about 30 cm) long, or a chain of the same length worked in the same thread
• Tapestry needle
• Hook: Start with 1.1 mm (US steel 11) — approximate; change size to match the 12 in (about 30 cm) heading

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

tr

treble crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

row

row

rep

repeat

sk

skip

lp

loop

ch-sp

chain space

Notes before you start

• Source: "Irish Lace Collar", Jewel Crochet Book: A Collection of Unique and Useful Designs with Full Working Instructions, Miller-Clark Designing Company, St. Joseph, Missouri, 1915. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Braid or ch 12 inches long; No. 60 thread; No. 11 hook. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches converted by the book's own printed stitch key (“Key to Terms Used in this Book”), not by name — this book uses the older British-style naming, so its names do not mean what the same names mean today. Chain (ch) = ch. Slip stitch (slst), hook through a stitch, draw a stitch through that and the loop on the hook without throwing thread over = sl st. “Double” (d), hook through the work, draw a stitch through making two on the hook, thread over and draw through both = modern single crochet (sc). “Half treble” (htr), thread over, hook through, draw a stitch through, thread over and draw through all three = modern half double crochet (hdc). “Treble” (tr), thread over, hook through, draw a stitch through making three on the hook, then work off two and two = modern double crochet (dc). “Double treble” (dtr), thread over twice and cast off three times, two and two and two = modern treble (tr). “Triple treble” (ttr), thread over three times and cast off four times = modern double treble (dtr). So every printed tr becomes dc here, every printed dtr becomes tr, and every printed ttr becomes dtr.
• Modernisation note: Picot (p) is the book's own: chain 3, 4 or 5 as you like, then insert the hook in the first of those chains, thread over and draw through the chain stitch and the stitch on the hook at once (a slip stitch). It is written “picot” in full throughout, with the book's chain count wherever one is printed, because there is no picot abbreviation in this site's abbreviation list. Triple picot (tp) is the book's “three picots in succession”.
• Modernisation note: The book's shorthand is written out in modern US form: ch = ch, sl-st = sl st, d = sc, htr = hdc, tr = dc, dtr = tr, ttr = dtr, st(s) = st(s), R = Row or Round, j = join (with a slip stitch), bet = between, m (mesh) = the chain-1 space of the mesh ground, “miss” = sk, “thread over hook” = yo, “* all around” / “* from **” = rep from *. Ordinal row names (“1st R.”, “2nd R.”) are written Row 1, Row 2, or Round 1, Round 2 where the piece is worked in the round; where the book calls a circuit of a circular piece a “row”, the round reading is given in the heading and the change is noted.
• Modernisation note: The book prints each design as one unbroken paragraph; it is split here into one row, round or step per line, with stitch order and counts unchanged. Section headings in bold in the book (Rose, Seed Pods, Crown, Edge, and so on) are kept; any other heading is added for navigation and named as added.
• Modernisation note: Thread is printed only as a number (“No. 60 thread”, “No. 20 thread”) with no brand and no yardage anywhere in the book. The modern equivalents given are approximations only: a size 60 or size 20 mercerized cotton crochet thread of the same size number. No yardage is printed for any design in this book, so none is given here.
• Modernisation note: Hooks are printed only as steel hook numbers (No. 9, No. 10, No. 11) with no diameters, so no exact metric size can be read from the book. The metric sizes given are approximate starting points read across to the modern US steel-hook scale, on which a higher number is finer; work a swatch and change hook size to match any printed measurement.
• Modernisation note: No stitch gauge is printed for any design in this book; work a swatch and match any printed measurement before starting.
• Modernisation note: The printed page is the authority for this transcription; every row was read from the page image, because the scanned text of this book is unusually broken. Where a digit could genuinely be read two ways it is flagged in a Check note below rather than guessed at.
• Modernisation note: The design is worked onto a manufactured lace braid, which the book names only as “braid”. These braids are no longer sold under their 1915 names; the book's own alternative — a chain 12 inches long in the same thread — avoids the substitution entirely, and is the safer start.
• Modernisation note: The book's doubled and tripled brackets ((…)) and (((…))) mark groups inside groups; they are kept as printed, because the general stitch key warns that the inner marks are not themselves repeat signs.
• Modernisation note: Check: Row 6 reads “(dtr, ch2, dtr, ch2, dtr) in center st in top of loop”, which becomes (tr, ch 2, tr, ch 2, tr) by the book's key; Rows 7 and 8 then work “tr over tr” into those stitches, which becomes dc over the trebles. Read Rows 7 and 8 as working dc into the tops of the taller stitches of Row 6.
• Modernisation note: Check: the collar is worked round, so the rows are circuits of the neck edge; the book still calls them rows and says “all around”. Row 10 closes by working up each front end.
• Modernisation note: Check: the colour is not printed; the collar photographs as white.
• Modernisation note: Finishing lines (fastening off, weaving in ends, blocking) added.
• Modernisation note: Metric conversions added.