Crocheted Afghan with Cross Stitch Embroidery No. 800 (1915): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Worsted-weight (CYC 4) wool in place of the book's 4-fold Germantown — ours, read across from the period name for a plump 4-ply wool
• 6-strand embroidery floss or a soft rayon/silk embroidery thread in place of the book's rope silk, for the cross-stitch figures
• Lining silk or eiderdown cloth where the book lines the piece
• Hook: Start with a 5 mm (US H-8) long hook for the afghan-stitch strips and the same hook for the border — ours, approximate. The book prints only an amber hook No. 5, 8 inch. Change size until the fabric is firm but supple.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

sl st

slip stitch

st

stitch

sts

stitches

sk

skip

rep

repeat

row

row

rnd

round

sp

space

sh

shell

cl

cluster

ps

puff stitch

yo

yarn over

lp

loop

Notes before you start

• Source: "Crocheted Afghan with Cross Stitch Embroidery No. 800" (No. 800), The Priscilla Baby Book No. 1: A Collection of Babies' Garments in Knitting and Crochet with Directions for Making (by Elsa Barsaloux), The Priscilla Publishing Company, 85 Broad Street, Boston, Mass., 1915. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: 3 skeins white 4-fold Germantown.; 5 skeins blue 4-fold Germantown.; 5 skeins each, rose and pale pink rope silk.; 4 skeins each, light and dark green rope silk.; 2 skeins each, yellow and light blue rope silk.; 1 yard silk to line.. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted by this book's own key (“Explanation of Stitches”, book page 3, image p-05.jpg), not by stitch name. The key is unusually explicit and settles the naming without guesswork. It defines “Double (d)” as: having a loop on the hook, put hook through work, draw thread through work making two loops on the hook, thread over again and through both loops — and it then says in so many words that this stitch has been called “single crochet”, especially in wool crochet, but that for the sake of standardising the terms it is called “double”, after the custom of workers in Irish crochet, eliminating entirely the name “single”. So the book's d is the modern US single crochet, stated outright rather than inferred. “Half Treble (h t)” takes one thread over, hook through work, thread over and through work giving three stitches on the hook, then thread over and through all three at once — the modern US half double crochet. “Treble (t)” takes one thread over, three stitches on the hook, off two and off two — the modern US double crochet. “Double Treble (d t)” takes thread over twice, four stitches on the hook, worked off two at a time — the modern US treble. “Long Treble (l t) or Triple Treble (t t)” takes thread over three times, five stitches on the hook, worked off by twos — the modern US double treble, with the key's own note that “l t” is used for anything longer than d t and the number of loops is then stated in the design. So this 1915 Priscilla book uses the older British heights, exactly like the 1913, 1915 and 1916 Priscilla crochet books in this repository and unlike the 1911 Priscilla Filet book: throughout this transcription the book's d is written sc, its h t is written hdc, its t is written dc, its d t is written tr, and its l t or t t is written dtr.
• Modernisation note: Afghan stitch is the book's own (same key, book page 3): make a chain the length required, draw a loop through each chain stitch until all are on the hook — that is the first half of the first row; the second half is thread over, draw through one stitch, then thread over and draw through two stitches repeatedly until one loop is left on the hook. The first half of the second row draws a loop through each of the upright stitches, and the second half is like the second half of the first row; the first and second halves together count as one row. The key also prints the book's binding off (insert hook in the second stitch, wool over, draw through the upright stitch and the loop on the hook, repeating until all stitches are bound off) and its increasing (at the start of a row draw a loop through the chain stitch between two upright stitches, and at the end draw a loop through the chain stitch between the last two upright stitches). This is the stitch modern workers call Tunisian simple stitch, worked with a long hook; the book calls the tool a crochet-hook throughout and so does this transcription.
• Modernisation note: Shell is the book's own (same key, book page 3): a group of trebles, ch 1 or more, then the same number of trebles, all worked in the same stitch or over the same chain, the key's example being (4 t, ch 3, 4 t). The number of trebles and the number of chain vary by design, and each design's own count is kept. Because the book's treble is the modern US double crochet, every shell here is a shell of dc. Many designs in this book also use the word “shell” loosely for a plain group of trebles worked into one place with no chain between, and where that is what the design prints, that is what is written here.
• Modernisation note: Picot (p) is the book's own (same key, book page 3): a picot is formed on a chain by joining the last four stitches — or any given number — in a ring by working a slip stitch, or a d, in the fourth stitch from the hook. Where a design prints its own chain count for a picot, that count is kept.
• Modernisation note: Check: the squared block pattern printed with this design is a cross-stitch EMBROIDERY chart, not a crochet chart. The crochet is complete in the written rows below; the chart only says where to place the embroidered figures afterwards on the finished afghan-stitch fabric. The book's own note is that cross-stitch designs are applied to afghan stitch because the afghan stitch makes a distinctly square grid, and that a heavy rope silk is used so the crosses stand up well from the wool. The embroidery is optional and is not transcribed stitch by stitch here; the placement rows the book prints in words are kept.
• Modernisation note: The book's shorthand is written in modern US form: ch = ch, sl = sl st, d = sc, h t = hdc, t = dc, d t = tr, l t and t t = dtr, p = picot, st(s) = st(s), sp = space. “Miss” is written sk; “wool over” and “silk over” are written yo, with the material named where the design changes between wool and silk mid-stitch; “repeat from *” is written rep from *. Ordinal row names (“1st Row”, “2d row”, “3d row”) are written Row 1, Row 2, Row 3, and where the book calls a circuit worked in the round a “row”, it is written Rnd and the change is noted.
• Modernisation note: The printed directions run as solid paragraphs under one DIRECTIONS heading per design; they are split here into one row, round or step per line, with the book's own sub-headings (Yoke, Body, Sleeves, Cuffs, Collar, Edge and so on) kept as section headings. Stitch order and counts are unchanged.
• Modernisation note: The scanned text of this book carries the usual optical-reading slips, and where a figure below looks odd it has been read back against the page image: the scan's “4o”, “3o”, “2oth”, “6oth” and the like are 40, 30, 20th and 60th, its “rst”, “ist” and “Ist” are 1st, its “gth” is 4th or 9th according to the sequence, its “tr” in a stitch count is 11, and its “Sth” is 8th. The row numbers below follow the sequence the printed page actually shows.
• Modernisation note: Materials are listed exactly as printed. The book's own IMPORTANT note (book page 3) explains two of its names: Lady Wool was chosen for its special softness for baby garments and may be found in shops under the names Lady Alice, Lady Jane, Ladyfair, Lady Grey and Lady Betty; and “the crochet wool mentioned is the same as the soft fine twofold Saxony, Zephyr Shetland, or Shetland Zephyr and Superfine Crochet”. Rope silk and twisted silk are the book's embroidery silks; crochet silk is its fine thread for the silk edges.
• Modernisation note: Hooks are printed only as period maker's numbers — bone, celluloid and amber hooks No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 for the wool, and steel hooks No. 6 to No. 9 for the silk — with no diameters, and those numbers do not map onto the modern scale. Any metric size given in the modern materials is ours and is a starting point only.
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design, or for any design in the book. The book's own caution (book page 3) is the only guidance it gives: when wool is used the crocheting should not be too tight, nor loose enough to be sloppy, but loose enough to show the beauty of the wool, and all the garments were made at that tension. Work a sample and change hook size to suit.
• Modernisation note: No yardage is estimated. The book counts skeins, spools and yards of ribbon and lace, but never prints a skein or spool length, so there is no printed basis for a yardage figure and none is invented here.
• Modernisation note: No finished measurement is printed for this design. The book gives sizes for almost nothing it makes — the pieces are infant-sized and are worked to the stitch and row counts printed.
• Modernisation note: The book lines many of these pieces with China silk, messaline or satin and edges them with bought lace and ribbon. Those are finishing materials, not crochet, and they are listed as printed and left optional here.
• Modernisation note: No hook is printed in this design's materials list; the hook suggested in the modern materials is ours, read across from the 4-fold Germantown the book names.
• Modernisation note: The book's Fig. 9 on book page 25 is the shared cross-stitch wreath chart, used by this afghan and by Carriage Robe No. 798. The book notes that on that diagram the two shades of rose are referred to as light and dark red, and that pink wool might be substituted for the blue.
• Modernisation note: The puff of the side rows and the puff of border Rnd 2 are not the same: the side rows draw their three loops from three rows below the working row, and the border draws its three loops from the stitch itself. Both are written out as printed.