Towel End with Scallop No. 53 (1915): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 20 mercerized cotton crochet thread — approximate; the book prints no thread number for this design
• Hairpin lace loom or fork, adjustable to the width printed for this design
• Steel crochet hook
• Tapestry needle for the ends
• Hook: Start with a 1.5 mm (US steel 6) hook — approximate, and ours: the book prints no hook size. Change size until the joining rows lie flat.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sl st

slip stitch

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

sh

shell

lp

loop

sk

skip

rep

repeat

row

row

Notes before you start

• Source: "Towel End with Scallop No. 53" (53), The New Maltese Crochet Designs, Complete With Instructions, The Riley-Francis Co., Covington, Kentucky, 1915. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: One row of plain hairpin gimp. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted by this book's own key (“Abbreviations of Terms”, book page 6, images/p-08.jpg) read together with the working text, not by the look of the abbreviation or the date. The key list is: Ch. chain; S. C. single crochet; D. C. double crochet; Sl. St. slip stitch; P. picot; R. row; Ro. round; St. stitch; Sts. stitches; Sk. skip; Lp. loop; Gp. gimp. Unusually, the same page then defines the stitches. Its D. C. is worked thread over the needle, into the next stitch, draw through, take off two, take off the two last — the modern US DOUBLE crochet, so dc is written unchanged here. Note that Clark's 1923 book elsewhere in this collection prints “D c” for a stitch that is the modern half double, and the London books in this collection use the British ladder in which a double is the US single; this book is neither, which is why its ladder was checked against its own page rather than carried across. The key's S. C. definition is defective as printed — it reads as a slip stitch, and the key's separate Slip Stitch definition repeats nearly the same words — so s. c. was settled from the working text instead: Figure 1 on book page 7 tells the worker to take up the front of the left-hand loop and “make an ordinary single crochet”, the standard hairpin move, so s. c. is the modern US SINGLE crochet and is written sc here. The key defines Picot as chain 5 closed into the first chain, so every unqualified picot below is a ch-5 picot. Tr. and dbl. tr. occur in some designs but are defined nowhere in the book.
• Modernisation note: This is hairpin lace, which the book calls Maltese crochet. The loop braid (the book's “gimp”, abbreviated gp. or H. P.) is made first on a two-pronged fork set to the printed width, then joined and edged with a crochet hook. The book explains the whole technique itself and refers nothing outside its own covers: making the gimp on the fork is Figure 1 (book page 7), the finished gimp is Figure 2, the plain single-crochet heading row is Figure 3, the Lovers' Knot or knot stitch and the chain-5 beading row (Figure 4) and the braiding join (Figure 5) are on book page 8, and the medallion is Detail No. 1 on book page 10. The book sells its own adjustable fork, but any hairpin lace loom or fork set to the printed width will do; the printed widths are carried through below exactly as given.
• Modernisation note: The knot stitch (the book's Lovers' Knot) is defined on book page 8: draw one long chain, take the thread on the hook from the back of that long chain so the single back thread and the chain link are both on the hook, then draw the thread through both — that half is what the book calls the half knot stitch — and repeat the half a second time to complete the whole knot. The book adds two working cautions kept here: make every stitch the same length, and “No widening done in Lovers' Knot. You must provide for that in first row.”
• Modernisation note: The book's wording is written in modern US form: lp./lps. = loop(s); gp. and H. P. = the hairpin gimp (the loop braid); sg. st. and se. st. = sc; kt. st. = knot stitch; dbl. = dc; pc. = picot; ch. = ch; sl. = sl st or slip the loops onto the hook, according to what the row is doing. “Fasten” is written join or sl st according to the row.
• Modernisation note: The printed paragraphs are split into one row or step per line; stitch order and counts are unchanged. Ordinal row names (“First Row”, “Second Row”) are written Row 1, Row 2. Section headings are added for navigation. The OCR of this scan garbles numerals badly — it prints 4 as “t” or “f”, 3 as “8”, and “lps.” as “Ips.” or “lps” — and those quirks are kept in the excerpts and not in the rows, where the page image was used instead.
• Modernisation note: Book page 5 warns that thread numbers were not standard between makers: “There are so many domestic threads on the market that even with the same number they differ in size.” It recommends cordonnet rather than a soft finish, and sizes 15 to 30 for beginners. Any modern size given here is approximate for that reason.
• Modernisation note: No hook size is printed for any design in this book. Book page 5 says so explicitly: “The size and number of crochet hook depends entirely upon the size of thread used and on the worker, as no two individuals work alike.” Any metric hook suggested here is therefore ours, read across from the thread, not from the page.
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design; the book prints no gauge or tension anywhere. Instead it sets the fork width, which fixes the depth of the loop braid, and that printed width is given above. Work a sample and change hook size until the joining rows lie flat.
• Modernisation note: No yardage is printed for this design. The book gives a quantity only for a handful of pieces (a spool, a ball, or a length of gimp in yards) and never a total yardage of thread, so none is given here.
• Modernisation note: Check: no colour is printed for this design. The plates photograph as a plain light thread, and the book's only colour remarks are general ones — an edge of coloured silk “in any preferred shade” for the handkerchief, and pale blue, pale green or old gold suggested for a two-colour fringe.
• Modernisation note: Figure 3, the book's heading row, is defined on book page 7: after the lace comes off the prongs, “a plain row of s. c. stitches is worked on either one side or both sides, for the purpose of sewing to linen, as beading for waists or inserting. For circle omit the ch. st. and make S. C. in each loop.” Check: the book states the chain only by telling you to omit it for a circle, so the straight version is read here as 1 ch between single crochets. The number of chains is not printed and is not invented.
• Modernisation note: Check: the OCR reads “First Row— Like Fig. 8 to end of row”. The page image (book page 27) reads “Like Fig. 3 to end of row”, which is the reading used above. Figure 8 is only a photograph with no directions; Figure 3 is the heading row defined on book page 7, so the design is workable and the apparent dead reference is an OCR artifact.
• Modernisation note: Check: “Skip 4” is the book's own count and is kept as printed, although the page does not say whether the four skipped are loops or chains. Read from the photograph the shells sit one to every group of loops along the edge; nothing has been added to settle it.
• Modernisation note: Check: no thread number and no fork width is printed for this edging. Neither has been invented.