Napkin Loop Edge, Fig. XV (1926): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Size 40 cotton or linen crochet thread — approximate; the book prints only the number "No. 40"
• Steel crochet hook
• The hemmed linen the edge is worked onto
• Tapestry needle for the ends
• Hook: Start with a 1.15 mm (US steel 9–10) hook — approximate. Change size until the edging lies flat.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

hdc

half double crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

rep

repeat

rnd

round

sk

skip

lp

loop

Notes before you start

• Source: "Crocheted Edge, Fig. XV" (Fig. XV), Variety: Italian Cut Work and Filet Lace, Book No. 2, Carmela Testa & Co., Inc., Boston, Mass., 1926. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: No. 40 thread; No. 9 crochet needle; A napkin, hemmed narrowly before starting. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted by this book's own key (book page 29, image p-31.jpg), not by the look of the abbreviation. The key lists: ch.—chain; sl. st.—slip stitch; s.c.—single crochet; d.c.—double crochet; tr.c.—treble crochet; d.sl.st.—double slipstitch; p.—picot; o.m.—open mesh; s.m.—solid mesh. The same page defines the mesh: “Open mesh: 1 d.c.—ch. 2—skip 2 stitches of previous row—1 d.c.—repeat. Solid mesh: 1 d.c. into d.c. of previous row—1 d.c. into each chain—1 d.c. into next d.c. of previous row. One solid mesh is made up of 4 d.c. Two solid mesh are made up of 7 d.c.” A one-stitch-plus-two-chain space and a four-stitch block is the ordinary modern filet mesh, which is what settles the naming: this book's d.c. IS the modern US double crochet and its s.c. IS the modern US single crochet. That is a finding, not an assumption — a 1923 book already in this collection uses the older naming, where the same abbreviations mean stitches one step taller, and reading this book by that key would have made every design wrong.
• Modernisation note: The book's wording is written in modern US form: “needle” means the hook and is written hook; “the goods” means the linen the edge is worked onto and is written linen; “skip” = sk; “Repeat” = rep; st(s) = st(s). The scan's OCR garbles some of the printed ordinals and fractions; the excerpts keep what the page image actually prints.
• Modernisation note: The printed paragraphs are split into one row, round or step per line; stitch order and counts are unchanged. Section headings added for navigation. Ordinal row names (“1st row”, “2nd row”) are written Row 1, Row 2.
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design — the book prints no gauge, tension or mesh-per-inch count anywhere. Work a sample and change hook size until the piece lies flat.
• Modernisation note: Check: no colour is printed for this design. The plates photograph as a plain light thread on light linen, and the book names no shade for any of its crochet.
• Modernisation note: The book's d.sl.st., “double slipstitch”, is named in the page-29 key but defined on book page 28 instead, inside the Fig. XV paragraph: “Double slip stitch is done the same as double crochet only the thread is slipped through the three stitches at once.” Worked that way — yarn over, insert the hook, pull up a loop so there are three loops on the hook, then draw through all three in one motion — it is the modern US half double crochet, and it is written hdc here. The book's own name for it is kept in the excerpts.
• Modernisation note: Where the book prints a thread number it is a 1926 cotton or linen thread number, read as roughly equal to the modern crochet thread size of the same number — approximate only.
• Modernisation note: The crochet needle numbers printed here are 1926 maker's steel-hook numbers and do not map onto the modern US steel scale, so any metric hook suggested here is ours, read across from the thread size; the printed needle number is recorded in the original materials.
• Modernisation note: No yardage is printed for this design. The book prints no ball counts or thread quantities anywhere, so none is given here.
• Modernisation note: Check: the printed fraction is ¼ inch, read off the page image; the scan's OCR renders it as a percent sign. The metric figure is ours.
• Modernisation note: The book prints this edge as one running paragraph with no row or round numbers. It is split into two rounds here because the second pass goes round the napkin again, filling the loops the first pass made.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book's shared opening for the page says a very narrow hem should be made before starting any of the edges, but that Figs. XVI, XVIII and XIX may instead have the linen simply turned back and trimmed off afterwards. Fig. XV is not in that list, so it takes the hem.
• Modernisation note: No finished measurement is printed; the edge is worked round a napkin, so its length is set by the napkin.