Vintage Veiling: Pattern Review.

In my previous vintage veiling post I mentioned that I was going to work on some vintage head covering patterns. I was silly and thought that the first pattern I picked was going to be a simple affair. It was a basic rectangle with tassels on the narrow ends. Then I read the pattern and discovered a few problems. The first was that I did not read the pattern correctly. The second problem was that it was written in such a fashion that a person who was new to crochet wouldn't easily understand it. I have a bit of experience and the pattern wasn't exactly kind to me at first either.

Lacy Fascinator Pattern No. 1826 is on one hand a very simple pattern after you get past how badly the directions were written up. On the other hand it is rather easy to get bored with your project with this pattern. I was working with worsted sport weight acrylic yarn. I can't give an exact amount for how much it took but it was not something even close to the eight balls of yarn called for. My best estimate is that this would easily completed with a skein and a half of yarn, if you are working at the weight of yarn I was. 

Extra Lacy Version

The pattern as it is written makes it hard to decipher what the pattern is. At first, I thought it was one row of moss stitch (single crochet one, chain one, repeat, end on a sc stitch) and then one row of double crochet moss stitch (double crochet one, chain one, repeat, end on a dc stitch) until 36 inches long after blocking (approximately 32 inches long unblocked). After I made it and compared what I made to the pictures with the pattern on the website, I knew that it wasn't right. It was a lacy mesh, but not long enough even after blocking.

Correct stitch pattern.

Final version w/o tassels

If you decide to try out the original pattern, the pattern starts with the first row crochet. It is a four row repeat for twenty repeats to get the desired length. Chain your 76 stitches. Turn and then single crochet into the second stitch from the hook. Chain one. Moss stitch across the row. Chain three for your turning chain. Double crochet into the first chain space (not into the stitch) and then double crochet into the single crochet stitch. Continue to alternate between double crochet into chain space and double crochet into single crochet stitch across the row. Moss stitch the next row followed by a double crochet row. Pattern complete, repeat this 20 times to reach your desired size (if you are using an 'H' hook and the same weight yarn as I did). The final row is moss stitch. 

In both cases, after you break off the yarn, you add tassels in the chain spaces on the narrow end rows. I chose not to do this with the one made as per the correct directions. Mainly because the tassels annoyed me.

Looking back over this project, I think that the sport weight yarn was too heavy. I would also make this longer because it is not a comfortable length on me. In all honesty, I'm going to take the remnants of the ball of yarn to add length to this to make it into a shawl. The stitch pattern is fantastic for a prayer shawl. If your do not make it quite so wide, and just a smidge longer, you could get a nice cowl out of it too.