Crochet Teapot-Cosy No. 17 (1888): vintage crochet pattern

Materials

• 1 oz (about 28 g) each of 4 shades of olive, 4 shades of red and 2 shades of maize in a Berlin-type wool — the book's own quantities and shades
• Crochet hook to suit the wool
• Thickly wadded satin or sateen for the lining, and a half-circle of stiff paper or card about 6 inches (15 cm) across
• Silk cord in the shades used, for the edge and the three loops at the top
• Sewing thread and a tapestry needle
• Hook: Check: the design prints “a crochet hook No. 12”. That is an 1888 maker's number and does not read straight across to a modern steel or aluminium size, so no modern equivalent is supplied. Match the hook to the Berlin wool you use and change size until the vandykes lie flat.

Abbreviations (US terms)

ch

chain

sc

single crochet

dc

double crochet

st

stitch

sts

stitches

rep

repeat

sk

skip

BLO

back loop only

inc

increase

rnd

round

row

row

Notes before you start

• Source: "Crochet Teapot-Cosy. No. 17" (No. 17), Instructions for Crochet Work, Western Lace Manufacturing Company, 218 State Street, Chicago, Ill., 1888. Public domain in the USA.
• As printed — materials: “Materials required 1 oz. each of 4 shades of olive, 4 shades of red, 2 shades of maize Berlin wool and a crochet hook No. 12.” (printed with the design, book page 98); “Line with thickly wadded satin or sateen.” and “The cosy is edged with silk cord, comprising the various shades used; it is arranged in 3 loops at top.” (printed with the design, book page 100); No gauge is printed.. Gauge: Not given.
• Modernisation note: Stitches are converted by this book's own printed key, “DESCRIPTION OF TERMS USED IN CROCHET”, book page 5 (image p-011.jpg) — not by the look of the abbreviation and not from the date. The key settles the question outright: this 1888 Chicago book uses MODERN US stitch names, the same ladder our 1891 Butterick uses and the opposite of the British-style ladder in the 1913 to 1916 Priscilla books. Its “Single Crochet” is: “Pass the hook through a loop of the last row, bring cotton through, throw cotton around the needle and pass it through the two loops on the needle.” One pull-up and two loops worked off together — the modern US single crochet, not a British double. Its “Double Crochet” is: “Throw cotton once around the needle, pass the hook through a loop of the preceding row, bring cotton through, then take cotton up and bring it through two loops twice.” One wrap before insertion, three loops worked off two at a time twice — the modern US double crochet, not a US single. Its “Half Double Crochet” is: “Like double crochet, only pass the cotton through the three loops on the needle, instead of passing it through two loops twice.” — the modern US half double. Its “Treble” is: “Throw the cotton twice around the needle, and work as double crochet, but bring cotton through two loops three times.” — the modern US treble. Its “Double Double Crochet” is: “Throw the cotton over the needle three times, work as double crochet, but draw the cotton through two loops four times.” — the modern US double treble, written dtr below. The WRAP COUNTS are the decisive evidence and they are printed rather than inferred: none for single, one for double, two for treble, three for double double, with the loops worked off two at a time in every case. So this book's s. c., d. c., h. d. c., t. and d. d. c. are written sc, dc, hdc, tr and dtr below with no shift of height.
• Modernisation note: Two of the book's terms do NOT map straight across, and both are handled explicitly rather than quietly. Its “Close Chain Stitch” (page 5) is: “Insert the hook in the loop of preceding row, and draw cotton through it and the loop on the needle at the same time.” That is what we call a slip stitch worked into the fabric, and it is written sl st below. Its own “Slip Stitch” (page 6) is a different move — a joining, not a stitch: “This stitch is used in joining. Take the hook from the last loop worked, pass it through the loop where the work has to be joined; then take the first loop spoken of and draw it through.” Where a design uses sl. st. in that joining sense the row below says join with a sl st and keeps the book's own wording; where it plainly means travelling along a chain or a row, the row says sl st. Its “Ribbed Crochet” (page 6) is: “Make a single crochet in the back loop of each stitch of the row last worked. At the end of every row make a chain stitch and turn the work; then begin the next row.” — written sc in blo below.
• Modernisation note: The book prints its own short table, “ABBREVIATIONS USED IN DIRECTIONS”, book page 6 (image p-012.jpg): “l. — Loop. ch. st. — Chain Stitch. cl. ch. st. — Close Chain Stitch. s. c. — Single Crochet. d. c. — Double Crochet. h. d. c. — Half Double Crochet. t. — Treble. d. d. c. — Double Double Crochet. p. — Picot. r. c. — Ribbed Crochet. sl. st. — Slip Stitch.” Note that its letter for treble is a bare “t.”, not “tr.”; several designs also write “T” or “t. c.” for the same stitch, and all three are written tr below. Most designs spell the stitches out in words anyway, and both forms are written in modern shorthand here.
• Modernisation note: The book's wording is written in modern US form: “needle” always means the crochet hook and is written hook; “set the needle into” = insert the hook in; “fill the ring with” = work the stitches into the ring; “miss” = sk; “catch down” and “fasten” = join with a sl st or a sc, according to what the row is doing; “throw the cotton over the needle” = yo; “d. c. 3 times in the same place” is written 3 dc in the same place; “repeat from *” = rep from *. Ordinal row names (“Ist Row”, “2d Row”, “3d Row”) are written Row 1, Row 2, Row 3, and Round where the design works in the round. The book's own spellings are kept in the design names as printed.
• Modernisation note: Several of these designs print as one solid paragraph with no row numbering at all, the new row marked only by the word “turn”. Those are split here into one row or step per line at the book's own “turn”, and the book's own sub-headings (BORDER, SCALLOP FOR TOP OF BOOTEE, For the Heading and so on) are kept as section headings. Stitch order and counts are unchanged and nothing is added.
• Modernisation note: The scanned text of this book carries the usual optical-reading slips, and every figure below was read back against the 220 dpi page image rather than trusted from the scan: the scan's “Ist” is 1st, its “Sth” is 8th, its “LO” and “lO” are 10, its “+” and “-L” standing in place of a number are the figure 4, its “§” is 5, its “Y” and “)” are 9, its “S” inside a number is 8, and its “e”, “¢”, “«” and “@” are all the letter c, so that “d. ec.”, “d. «.”, “cd. c.” and “a. c.” are all d. c. Where the scan and the printed page disagree, the printed page is followed and the disagreement is recorded as a Check note.
• Modernisation note: No gauge is printed for this design. The book prints a gauge exactly once in its whole 114 pages — for the Crochet Dress for Child on page 60, which is in this file — and gives none for any other design. Work a sample and change hook size until the piece lies flat.
• Modernisation note: This is one of only two designs in the whole book that print their own materials at the head, and the only one that prints a hook number. Both are quoted above exactly as set.
• Modernisation note: Check, and it is the design's real weakness: the round-to-round arithmetic does not close after Round 2. Round 1 works 18 increase points over the chain of 64 (18 × 3 sts = 54, plus the 10 plain = 64, which checks exactly) and leaves 100 stitches. Round 2 then consumes 4 + 17 × 5 + 10 = 99, one short. Round 3 consumes 5 + 17 × 6 + 10 = 117 where Round 2 has left 135, and the gap widens in Rounds 4 and 5, because the printed run between two increase points grows by only one a round where the work grows by two. The counts are printed exactly as given above and nothing is altered; in practice the round is self-locating, because from Row 6 on the book stops counting and says “3 into the point of vandyke” and “miss 2 stitches in the depth between 2 vandykes”, which is what the worker actually follows.
• Modernisation note: Check: the book restarts its numbering inside the centre-filling section — the sentence beginning “To fill up the hole at the beginning of the work” is followed straight away by “2d Round”. That sentence is therefore the first round of that section and is written as such above, without a number being invented for it.
• Modernisation note: Check: the scan reads the materials as “1 oz. each of + shades of olive”; the printed page (book page 98, image p-104.jpg) reads “1 oz. each of 4 shades of olive”.
• Modernisation note: Check: the scan reads Round 1's repeat as “repeat from * 17 times more, 1s. e. into each of LO stitehes”; the page reads 17 and 10.
• Modernisation note: Check: the scan reads Rows 27 and 28 as “27th and 25th Rows”; the page (book page 99, image p-105.jpg) reads “27th and 28th Rows”. Its “[Sth Row” is 18th Row and its “B4th Row” is 34th Row.
• Modernisation note: “In the next and all following rows work into the back horizontal loop of each stitch” is the book's ribbed crochet, defined on page 6; blo is listed in the abbreviations.
• Modernisation note: The shades are the book's own and are printed as a sequence, not as a chart. They are kept in the book's order and wording; the three colours recorded below stand for the three families it names, not for particular dye lots.