Picot Chain Edge, Fig. XVIII (1926): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• Cotton or linen crochet thread — the book prints no thread number for this design
• Steel crochet hook to suit the thread
• Tapestry needle for the ends
• Hook: Check: the book prints no thread number and no needle number for this design, so no modern hook can be read across from a thread size. Match the hook to whatever thread is chosen.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sl st

slip stitch

sc

single crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

rep

repeat

ps

puff stitch

lp

loop

Notes before you start

• Source: "Crocheted Edge, Fig. XVIII" (Fig. XVIII), 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 thread number printed for this design; No crochet needle number printed for this design; Linen, which may be simply turned back and trimmed off when the crocheting is completed. 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: Check: the book prints no thread number and no crochet-needle number for this design. On book page 28 only the first edge (Fig. XV) and the last (Fig. XX) carry a thread number; the four between them are printed as bare directions under the page's shared opening paragraph. Nothing is invented here to fill the gap.
• 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 picot is the book's own — “ch. 3, sl.st., 3 st. back” — a chain-3 closed by slip stitching back three stitches. The book does not use the word picot here, though it does for Figs. XIX and XX; the reading is the same in all three.
• Modernisation note: The book prints this edge as one paragraph with no row numbers; it is split into steps here.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book's shared opening for the page names Fig. XVIII as one of the three where the linen may be simply turned back and trimmed off when the crocheting is completed, instead of being hemmed first.
• Modernisation note: No finished measurement is printed; the edge is worked to the length of the piece it trims.