Hairpin Insertion and Edging for a Towel No. 3163 (1916): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 30 mercerized cotton crochet thread — approximate; the book prints only its own trade name and size number
• Steel crochet hook
• Tapestry needle for the ends
• A hairpin lace fork or loom — the book calls for “a hairpin which comes for this purpose” and prints no width for it
• A towel to trim
• Hook: Start with a 1.25 mm (US steel 8) hook — approximate, and ours: the book prints “Crochet Hook, size 11”, a number on the maker's own scale that does not map onto modern steel sizes. Change size until the work lies flat.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sl st

slip stitch

sc

single crochet

sp

space

ch-sp

chain space

st

stitch

sts

stitches

sk

skip

lp

loop

rep

repeat

row

row

Notes before you start

• Source: "No. 3163 — Towel" (3163), Royal Society Crochet Lessons, Vol. 1, No. 7, H. E. Verran Company, Inc., New York, 1916. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: ROYAL SOCIETY White CORDICHET, size 30, 1 ball; Crochet Hook, No. 11; A hairpin of the kind sold for the purpose; A towel to trim. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted from the key this book prints itself, not from the date. The key is on book page 3, headed “CROCHET STITCHES”, facing a photographic plate of the same fifteen stitches on book page 2, and it defines every height in full. Single crochet is “insert needle in last chain and pull thread through, thus having two loops on needle. Wind thread once over needle and pull through the two loops” — the modern US single. Half double crochet is named and abbreviated separately, “wind thread once around needle, insert into chain and pull loop through. Wind thread around needle again and pull through three loops at once” — the modern US half double. Double crochet is “wind thread once around needle. Insert needle into chain and pull through; this leaves three loops on needle. Wind thread once around needle and pull through two. Wind thread again over needle and pull through two” — the modern US double, and because the book names the half double separately it cannot be the half double that Clark's 1923 book in another part of this library means by the same-looking abbreviation. Treble crochet is “made same way as Double Crochet, only at first wind thread twice over needle and pull thread through three times — two and two and two” — the modern US treble, written tr below; double treble takes three wraps and is written dtr. The key also defines the filet mesh as “chain two stitches, skip two stitches, one double crochet into next stitch” and a shell as “five double crochet in one stitch”. One trap in the printed abbreviation table on that page: it glosses “sp.” as spoke, not space, so no bare “sp.” anywhere in this book has been read as a space.
• Modernisation note: The book's wording is written in modern US form: “ch.” = ch; “s.c.” = sc; “h.d.c.” = hdc; “d.c.” = dc; “t.c.” and “tr.c.” = tr; “d.tr.c.” = dtr; “sl. st.” = sl st; “sk.” = sk; “p.” = picot; “m.” = mesh. Ordinal row names (“1st Row”, “2nd Row”) are written Row 1, Row 2; the book's “repeat from *” is written rep from *; and “finish off” is written fasten off. The book's own word “hole” for the gap it works into is kept, because that is the word it uses and it never abbreviates it.
• Modernisation note: The printed paragraphs are split into one row or step per line; stitch order and counts are unchanged. Section headings are the book's own where it prints them and ours where it does not. The OCR of this scan is rough — it prints “d.c.” variously as “dc”, “de” and “dic”, sets row labels as “lst Bow”, “Qnd Bow” and “8rd Row”, and drops words at the column breaks. Those quirks are kept in the excerpts and not in the rows.
• Modernisation note: The book names its threads by the maker's own trade name and colour number — Royal Society Cordichet in a stated size, sometimes with a colour number such as No. 3012. Those colour numbers were shade codes in the maker's own range and cannot be matched to any modern shade card, so they are recorded as printed and not converted. The stated thread size is read as roughly equal to the modern crochet cotton size of the same number — approximate only.
• Modernisation note: The book prints a hook number for most designs, but the number belongs to the maker's own scale rather than to any modern one, so it is recorded above as printed and the metric suggestion below is ours, read across from the thread size rather than from the page.
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design — the book prints no gauge, tension or stitch count per inch anywhere. Work a sample and change hook size until the piece lies flat.
• Modernisation note: Check: this is a towel trimming, so its length is set by the towel it trims; the book prints no length and leaves the number of repeats to the worker.
• Modernisation note: No finished measurement is printed for this design.
• Modernisation note: No yardage is printed for this design. The book gives ball counts only, and where it does they are recorded above as printed; no length in yards or metres appears anywhere in the book.
• Modernisation note: Check: no width is printed for the hairpin. The book says only “a hairpin which comes for this purpose”, so the fork width is left to the worker and none has been supplied here. A modern hairpin lace fork of adjustable width does the same job.
• Modernisation note: Check: the hairpin working directions above are the book's own, printed on book page 41 with three photographic figures beside them, and they are repeated here because this design depends on them entirely. The design's own line points to them but prints the page number as 43, which is the page the design itself is on; the directions are in fact on book page 41.
• Modernisation note: Check: the only stitch used in the whole design is the single crochet, plus chains. No tall stitch appears anywhere in it.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book prints no row labels for the insertion at all and labels none of the edging rows either; the rows above are split at the book's own “continue across” and “turn”, and the headings are the book's own words.
• Modernisation note: Check: the second row of the edging is printed without its opening — “s.c. into 2 first loops, ch. 2” — and the page image reads the same, with the row's first character lost in the gutter of the printed column. It is written above as 1 sc, matching the row before and after it, and that reading is noted here rather than passed off as printed.
• Modernisation note: The line about setting the insertion into the towel is ours; the book prints the pieces as strips and the photograph on book page 40 shows them set in above the hem.