Figure 37 Bleeding Heart Border for a Tea Cloth (1916): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 150 crochet thread — approximate modern equivalent of the book's No. 150 crochet cotton
• 0.75 mm steel hook (US steel 14) — approximate for the book's No. 14 hook
• Fine tapestry or sewing needle for the ends
• Hook: Start with 0.75 mm (US steel 14) — approximate for the book's No. 14 hook; change size until the thread runs easily without splitting and the lace lies flat.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

dc

double crochet

tr

treble crochet

sl st

slip stitch

st

stitch

sts

stitches

sk

skip

sp

space

rep

repeat

row

row

BLO

back loop only

Notes before you start

• Source: "Figure 37. Border for Tea Cloth, “Bleeding Heart” Design", The Priscilla Crochet Book: Edgings and Insertions, No. 2 (Edited by Belle Robinson), The Priscilla Publishing Company, Boston, 1916. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: Crochet cotton No. 150 — the book's Materials paragraph says “crochet cotton” means the hard-twisted cotton sold as Cordonnet, Cordonnet Special, Cordichet, Kord-net and similar; Hook No. 14. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches converted by the book's own “Explanation of Stitches” (printed page 3), not by name. This book uses the older British-style naming, so its stitch names do NOT match modern US names: chain (ch) = ch; slip stitch (sl) = sl st; “double” (d), “put hook through work, draw thread through work (making two loops on the hook); thread over again and through both loops” = modern US single crochet (sc) — the book itself notes this stitch “has been, especially in wool crochet, called ‘single crochet’”; “half treble” (ht), thread over, through work, “thread over and through all three sts at once” = modern US half double crochet (hdc); “treble” (t), thread over, through work, “thread over and through two loops, thread over and again through two loops” = modern US double crochet (dc); “double treble” (dt), thread over twice and worked off by twos three times = modern US treble crochet (tr); “long treble” (lt) or “triple treble” (tt), thread over three times and crocheted off by twos = modern US double treble (dtr); “quadruple treble” (qt), thread over four times = modern US triple treble (trtr). Every stitch in these instructions has been rewritten in the modern US name and abbreviation on that basis.
• Modernisation note: The book defines its filet terms on printed page 3: a space (sp) is “ch 2, miss 2 sts, t in next”, and “where the number of t is given, as 4 t, 7 t, etc., this t is included”; a block of 4 or block of 3 is “a given number of t, dt, or long t worked without ch between”. Those definitions are carried into the modern text unchanged, so “4 dc” in a filet row means the block of four that shares its first dc with the stitch before it.
• Modernisation note: The book's abbreviations are written in modern US form: d = sc, ht = hdc, t = dc, dt = tr, lt/tt = dtr, st(s) = st(s), sp = sp, p = picot, blk = block, “miss” = sk, “thread over (the hook)” = yo, “repeat” = rep, “needle” (where it is used for the crochet hook) = hook. Ordinal row names (“1st row”, “2d row”) are written Row 1, Row 2, and “1st round”/“2d round” as Rnd 1, Rnd 2. Section headings (Heading, Edge, Lower Edge, Filling) are the book's own where it prints them.
• Modernisation note: The book prints each design as one or two solid paragraphs; these have been split into one row, round or step per line. Stitch order and counts are unchanged. Where the book's own repeat markers (*, **, ***) span several lines they are kept as printed.
• Modernisation note: Thread sizes are the book's own numbering. Its Materials paragraph says that “where the words ‘crochet cotton’ are used in the text of this book, the cotton referred to is the hard-twisted cotton known by such names as Cordonnet, Cordonnet Special, Cordichet, Kord-net, etc.” “No. N crochet cotton” is given below as modern size N crochet thread, which is an approximation: modern size numbering runs the same way (higher number = finer thread) but the exact diameters are not identical. No yardage is printed anywhere in the book, so none is given here.
• Modernisation note: Hook sizes are the book's own steel numbering. The 1916 steel numbering is not identical to the modern one, so every metric size below is approximate and should be adjusted to the thread.
• Modernisation note: No gauge and no finished measurements are printed for this design; work a sample repeat and adjust the hook until the lace lies flat at the width you want.
• Modernisation note: Metric conversions added.
• Modernisation note: The book's picot (p) is defined on the same page: “A p is formed on a ch by joining the last four sts (or any given number) in a ring by working a sl, or a d, in the fourth st from the hook. In the following directions a sl is understood unless otherwise designated.” Picots are written out as “picot” with the chain count the design gives, since the site's abbreviation list has no picot entry.
• Modernisation note: Check: the foundation is read from the page image as “Chain 118, plus 3 as 1 t”. The scanned text of that line reads “718”, which the row counts do not support; 118 is used here.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book does not print the last four rows of the first of the two leaves at the middle of the side after the corner — it directs the worker to take them “from design shown at Fig. 38”, which is the block chart on printed page 29. Those four rows must be read off that chart; everything else is written out.
• Modernisation note: Check: this is 50 pattern rows plus a 77-row corner and a 35-row second half, set in small type in two narrow columns. The rows below follow the printed text, but the book's own Note says the design “would not be difficult to copy from the illustration by the use of a reading glass, after the work is commenced”, so check a repeat against the photograph before committing to a long piece.