Hints on Crochet.
A steel crochet needle is generally advisable;—with expert workers, it makes the most even stitches, but it is easier to work with an ivory needle.
The second-sized netting silk is prettiest for purses.
The coarsest, or crochet silk, is best adapted for bags, with steel or gold beads.
Where many colours are required in a pattern, and the same do not very frequently occur, it is advisable to introduce them in short lengths, instead of carrying on each thread. This should always be attended to when working with chenille.
When beads are used, they should be strung on the silk with a needle.
When beads are introduced, the wrong side of the work becomes the right. It is possible to crochet with the beads on the right side, but they never lay so firmly, nor indeed is it the proper way of using them.
The average number of stitches for the length of a purse, in fine silk, is one hundred and sixty. In coarse silk,—one hundred and ten.
From ninety to one hundred stitches form the circle of a purse in fine silk.
One hundred and thirty stitches may be taken for the round of a bag, in crochet silk.
A table-cover, in six-thread fleecy, is generally computed at about four hundred stitches in length.
Borders of flowers, and very intricate patterns, may be worked in crochet, but it would be impossible to convey a complete idea of these even to the most experienced worker, without greatly exceeding the limits of the present work. The expert needle-woman will soon perceive the best method of copying any pattern of this description she may desire.
The terms chiné and ombré, are frequently applied to the materials employed in crochet and knitting. Wool and silk are chiné, when two, three, or more different colours are introduced, at intervals, on one thread, in the process of dying;—they are ombré, when one colour only is similarly employed, but which gradually runs from the lightest to the darkest shade.
N. B. In the directions for working the different patterns in crochet, it must be borne in mind, that unless any other stitch be mentioned, the plain, or double crochet stitch, is always to be employed.