Five antique Tunisian crochet patterns, rewritten for worsted yarn

Two old books, five finished pieces

Thérèse de Dillmont opened her Tunisian chapter in the Encyclopedia of Needlework (1880s) with a plain observation: the craft is also called crochet-knitting, "because, you have to cast on all the first row of stitches, as in knitting." She meant the forward pass, where every loop waits on the hook until the return.

The washcloth and the scarf grow from her stitches. The other three pieces come from a 1914 American needlework booklet that mixed crochet with knitting, and only its Tunisian parts made it into this book.

Every pattern has a chart and a note on what changed from the original. If you have never worked a Tunisian row, a one-page guide walks through both passes.

• Crossed-Stitch Washcloth, Easy
• Open Tunisian Scarf, Easy
• Child's Tunisian Cap, Easy to Intermediate, in three sizes
• Popcorn Daisy Cushion, Intermediate
• Cross-Stitch Stripe Throw, Easy

Two sentences of 1880s stitch, stretched into a washcloth and a scarf

De Dillmont gives her open stitch two sentences. On the return pass you "alternately join 2 and 3, or 3 and 4 loops" and replace them with chains. Worked that way the stitch count would wander from row to row, so the scarf always joins two and chains two. Fourteen little groups, 30 stitches on every row, and a mesh that behaves.

Plain bands sit at each end, five rows at the bottom and five at the top, which keep the edges from rippling. In worsted wool on a US K-10½ (6.5 mm) hook the scarf comes to about 7½ in wide and 56 in long (19 × 142 cm). Budget about 330 yd (302 m), plus about 25 yd (23 m) for the fringe. Gauge is 16 stitches and 13 rows to 4 in (10 cm), lightly blocked.

The washcloth takes her plaited stitch: "miss the first loop in the 1st row, take up the second, and come back to the first." Cross pairs of stitches along a row and you get lines of crossings. Start every other row one stitch later and the lines slant, which is her diagonal version. The result is a 30-stitch square of 28 rows, edged with two rounds of single crochet and a hanging loop. You need about 90 yd (82 m) of worsted cotton, a US I-9 (5.5 mm) Tunisian hook and a standard hook of the same size for the border. Gauge is 18 stitches and 16 rows to 4 in (10 cm).

The cushion whose numbers would not add up

The 1914 booklet's daisy afghan is a blanket of 30 blocks, each chained 30 and worked in plain Tunisian with a diamond of popcorns up the middle. Check its fifth row against the chain and it falls over: 11 loops, a popcorn, 1 plain, a popcorn, 4 plain, a popcorn, 1 plain, a popcorn, 10 plain. That is 31 loops on a 30-stitch block.

Rather than copy a count that cannot work, this pattern recentres the diamond on 29 stitches, with 3, 9, 15 and 19 loops in the middle where the booklet has 4, 10, 16 and 20. The widest row still follows the original: "This is the middle row of the block." A popcorn is a chain of 5 drawn through and pulled to the front, worked in place of one ordinary work-off, and plain rows are added so each block comes out square.

Thirty blocks became eight, about 6½ in (16.5 cm) each, which makes a cover about 13 in (33 cm) square for a 14 in (35 cm) form. The daisies are stitched on afterwards, and the last round of the old ruffled border survives as a chain-loop edge. Plan on about 400 yd (366 m) of worsted wool for the blocks.

From baby bonnet to pull-on cap

The booklet's baby cap starts with a chain of 16, widens on the third, sixth, eleventh, fifteenth and twentieth rows, then on each of the next seven rows tells you to "narrow one stitch at each end of row by picking up 2 perpendicular threads together." Its centre is knitted, so only the Tunisian parts were kept.

What survives is that seven-row crown. Here it shapes a pull-on cap made in two flat halves. Each begins with a band of crossed stitch borrowed from de Dillmont, runs through plain rows, then decreases at both edges from Row 16 to Row 22. Size S goes from 36 stitches to 22 over those seven rows, M from 38 to 24, L from 40 to 26. Seam the sides, gather the top, add a pompom.

Fit depends on gauge here more than in any other pattern: 16 stitches and 13 rows to 4 in (10 cm) on a US J-10 (6 mm) Tunisian hook. Child S, M and L suit heads of about 18, 19½ and 20½ in (46, 49.5 and 52 cm), finishing about 17, 18 and 19 in (43, 45.5 and 48 cm) around after seaming, and 7 in (18 cm) tall in every size. Yarn is about 130, 145 or 160 yd (119, 133 or 146 m) of worsted wool, plus about 20 yd (18 m) for the pompom. Row 16 is where the first decreases land, and a good row to have Row & Round's bar parked on while you check your count against your size's bracket.

A throw built from strips, with tassels done the old way

The 1914 afghan alternates three Tunisian stripes of 37 stitches with two knitted-and-crocheted ones. Here every strip is Tunisian: five of them, 29 stitches wide, in two colours. The booklet's stripes taper for six rows at the end, but these stay straight so the strips sew into a rectangle.

The booklet's cross-stitch design exists only as a picture, so the diamond motif is new and charted. Its twisted-cord edge becomes two rounds of single crochet. The tassels stay as written: "cut 40 strands each 10 inches long, pull through loops and tie double."

The throw finishes at about 37¼ × 43¾ in (94.5 × 111.5 cm) with the border, before the tassels. You need about 1,350 yd (1,234 m) of worsted wool in the main colour and about 900 yd (823 m) in the contrast. Long steady rows, no shaping, which is why it is rated Easy.

Hooks, yarn and the curl

Every pattern uses worsted-weight (#4) yarn: cotton for the washcloth, wool or a wool blend for the rest. You need a Tunisian (afghan) hook at least 10 in (25 cm) long, in sizes from US I-9 (5.5 mm) to US K-10½ (6.5 mm). The originals asked only for "a long straight needle, with a knob at one end."

Plain Tunisian fabric curls at the bottom edge. A border, a hook a size up and a gentle blocking all help. The washcloth gets two rounds of single crochet and a wet pat into shape, and the scarf is pinned out and misted.

In these Tunisian crochet patterns the loop count on the hook after each forward pass stays fixed unless the row says otherwise: 30 on the washcloth and scarf, 29 on the cushion blocks and throw strips. Only the cap's crown changes it, and the pattern gives the new number each time.