Baby's Nightingale Square Wrap in Shell Mesh (1912): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Fine (CYC #2) soft wool yarn in white — approximate; the original was 4 balls or skeins of white Pompadour wool (weight and length not printed)
• Fine (CYC #2) soft wool yarn in a colour of choice — approximate; the original was 2 balls of Pompadour wool
• Crochet hook (a bone crochet hook in the original; size not printed)
• 2 yd (1.8 m) ribbon
• Tapestry needle
• Hook: Start with 3.5 mm (US E-4) — approximate; no hook size or measurement is printed

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

row

row

sk

skip

rep

repeat

sh

shell

ch-sp

chain space

Notes before you start

• Source: "Baby's Nightingale", Priscilla Wool Crochet Book (ed. Lola Burks Hettich), The Priscilla Publishing Company, Boston, 1912. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Four balls or skeins of white Pompadour wool, 2 balls of color desired, 2 yards of ribbon, bone crochet-hook. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches converted by the book's own “Explanation of Stitches”, not by name: chain stitch (ch st, “make a series of loops, drawing each loop through the preceding one”) = ch; slip stitch (sl st, “insert the hook into the stitch, draw the wool through that stitch and through the wool on hook at the same time”) = sl st; single crochet (s c, “insert the hook, draw wool through, pass wool around hook (wool over), and draw it through both loops on the hook”) = sc; double crochet (d c, wool around the hook, insert, draw through, then through 2 loops twice) = dc; half double crochet (h d c, wool around the hook, insert, draw through, then “through all 3 loops at once”) = hdc; treble crochet (t c or tr c, wool around the hook twice, insert, draw through, then through 2 loops three times) = tr. For these stitches the 1912 American names already match modern US usage, so no stitch changes height. The book's long crochet (l c: wool around the hook, insert, draw through, then through 1 loop, then through 2 loops twice) is the modern extended double crochet; where used it is written “long crochet” with that definition.
• Modernisation note: The book's abbreviations are written in modern US form: ch st = ch, s c = sc, d c = dc, h d c = hdc, t c / tr c = tr, st(s) = st(s), “wool over” / “thread over” / “pass the wool around the hook” = yo; “miss” = sk; loop = lp; “repeat” = rep; “beginning” = beg. “Widen” is written as increase and “narrow” as decrease, as defined in each design. Ordinal row names (“1st row”, “2d row”) are written Row 1, Row 2; where the book calls a circuit of a round piece a “row” the book's word is kept. “Plain” (a row or round with no increases or decreases) is kept as printed.
• Modernisation note: Long printed paragraphs are split into one row, round or step per line; stitch order and counts unchanged. Section headings added for navigation.
• Modernisation note: Hooks are printed as bone hooks described only as fine, medium-sized or coarse, or by an unstated numbering system, with no diameters, so no exact metric size can be read from the book. The suggested modern hook is an approximate starting point chosen for the yarn weight and tied to any printed measurement.
• Modernisation note: No stitch gauge is printed for this design; work a swatch and match any printed measurement (given in the modern gauge line) before starting.
• Modernisation note: The yarns are 1912 trade descriptions with no exact modern equivalent, and the book prints no yardage or skein/ball weights except where quoted in the materials. The CYC weights given are approximations only: Saxony (a fine, firm yarn) and 2-ply (single) zephyr as super fine (CYC #1); ice wool (a very fine, lustrous yarn) as super fine (CYC #1); Shetland floss (a soft, lofty yarn) and eiderdown wool as fine (CYC #2) — lofty yarns and to be matched by gauge or measurement rather than by weight; 4-ply (split) zephyr, 4-fold Germantown and Spanish yarn as light (CYC #3); 8-fold Germantown and knitting worsted as medium (CYC #4).
• Modernisation note: “Pompadour wool” is not in the book's yarn list; it is treated as a soft fine yarn, fine (CYC #2) — approximate. Match by the look of the photograph rather than by weight.
• Modernisation note: “Shell” here is 3 dc in one square; “double shells” (2 shells in one square, with ch 2 between as in Row 1) make the widening that keeps the piece square.
• Modernisation note: Row numbers for the first two shell rows are ours; the book counts “fifteen rows of white”, read as including these rows.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book says “a chain of 4” at the start of every shell row but ch 2 between shells; the ch 4 is read as the turning chain.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book's picot edge is not described; any small ch-3 picot may be used.
• Modernisation note: Check: the tying at the “1st and 3rd points” — the nightingale has four points, one at the neck opening; the photographs show the side points tied to form sleeves and the point between them hanging at the back.
• Modernisation note: Finishing “Weave in the ends” added.
• Modernisation note: Metric conversions added.