Three-Loop Cluster Edge, Fig. XIX (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

hdc

half double crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

rep

repeat

ps

puff stitch

lp

loop

Notes before you start

• Source: "Crocheted Edge, Fig. XIX" (Fig. XIX), 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: 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: 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 book prints this edge as one unbroken paragraph, but names its own parts inside it — “Second loop”, and “begin the third”. Those names are used as the headings above; the headings are the book's words, the division into four blocks is ours.
• Modernisation note: Check: two joins in the third-loop passage are printed without saying plainly where they land, and they are left exactly as printed rather than guessed at. The first is “begin the third ch. 8 go back and sl.st. into fourth chain” — read here as: begin the third loop by working ch 8, then slip stitching back into the fourth chain of it. The second is “Slip into last d.sl.st. of second loop” — the book does not say from which stitch of the third loop that slip is taken. Work a sample before committing to a length.
• Modernisation note: Check: “twist needle around to right and sl.st. in last s.c.” is the book's way of closing the first picot, and it is kept in the book's words above because it describes a hand movement, not a stitch.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book writes the last loop of the repeat as “ch. 7, fasten with sl.st., 3 sts. beyond picot”, where the earlier two say “go back 3 st.s. beyond picot and sl.st. into s.c.” The two are read as the same instruction.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book's shared opening for the page names Fig. XIX 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.