Child's Cap and Bib with Crochet Ring Trimmings (1912): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Mercerized crochet cotton (size and amount not printed)
• Steel crochet hook to suit the cotton (not printed)
• Cap: linen, 18 × 6 in (45.5 × 15 cm); 3-in (7.5 cm) ribbon for the bow and ties (length not printed); narrow lace for the ruffle (length not printed)
• Bib: heavy white cotton vesting (piqué; amount not printed); a button or tape
• Sewing machine (or hand sewing), sewing thread, embroidery needle for the French knots
• Hook: Start with 1.5 mm (US steel 7) — approximate; no hook, cotton size or ring size is printed (each ring is wound 10 times over the forefinger)

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

sl st

slip stitch

st

stitch

sts

stitches

rep

repeat

Notes before you start

• Source: "Child's Cap and Bib with Crochet Trimmings", Priscilla Wool Crochet Book (ed. Lola Burks Hettich), The Priscilla Publishing Company, Boston, 1912. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Not listed separately. From the text — Cap: a piece of linen eighteen inches long and six inches wide; mercerized cotton; three-inch ribbon; narrow lace; Bib: very heavy white vesting; mercerized cotton; button and buttonhole or tape. 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: Metric conversions added.
• Modernisation note: The cap and bib are printed as one article with a single heading, so they are given as one entry with a section for each piece. The cap and bib themselves are sewn from fabric; only the rings and motifs are crochet. The linen or vesting cutting shapes are not printed — follow the photographs.
• Modernisation note: “Crochet needle” is written crochet hook. The rings are thread rings wound over the finger and covered with stitches (dc or sc) worked into the ring.
• Modernisation note: No materials list is printed; the materials are gathered from the text.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book says “It takes six of these motifs for the cap” but places “the five crochet motifs” between the rows of rings; the sixth motif is presumably the one the crown is gathered around.
• Modernisation note: Check: “The other rings are wound the same and filled half, another wound and filled half, and so on, then turned and remainder filled” is read as the plain (no-picot) ring trimming for the cap, worked in the same way as the motif rings; the number of dc per ring is not printed for the cap rings (the bib rings use 9 dc per half).
• Modernisation note: Check: the book's bib ring trimming begins “ch 3, work * 9 d c in the ring”; whether the ch 3 is repeated for each ring is not printed.
• Modernisation note: Check: “it must be snipped nearly half an inch rather close together” is read as clipping the neck curve at close intervals to nearly ½ in (13 mm) deep.