Manuel Pratique du Crochet (2e édition)

Sentiment around crochet in the 19th century

It cannot be understated that the accessibility of crochet was somewhat frowned upon during this period of history. Although it instilled good morals such as patience and an inclination for family, crochet was not the past time of choice, partly due to its accessibility funnily enough. It wasn't as artful as embroidery or machine-made lace, and crochet was often relegated to house decor instead of being worn as clothes like knitting, even though you would use the same yarn. Because many European countries were industrializing at the time, that is why machine-made items were à la mode.

Crochet is lauded instead of shuned for its accessibility

I find it so interesting that this sentiment has changed. Crochet has gained so much popularity nowadays thanks to how easy you can pick it up compared to other fiber arts. In general, all you need is yarn and a hook to create an intricately beautiful cardigan in half the time it would take you to knit something similar because of how quick and easy crochet can work up. Many people my age who do fiber arts, tend to reach for crochet more because of the community it creates.

Here's the book!

French Transcript:

Le crochet est, sans contredit, l’ouvrage de prédilection des dames ; il mérite, du reste, cette faveur par le peu de difficultés qu’il offre dans son exécution, la variété de ses points, le nombre et l’utilité des objets que l’on peut en former.

Nous avons donc pensé qu’un nouveau Manuel pratique du crochet serait bien accueilli par les dames. De nouvelles inventions, des imitations ingénieuses se sont produites depuis peu dans ce genre de travail. La guipure d’Irlande, la passementerie sont aujourd’hui fidèlement reproduites par le crochet. Nous avons réuni un grand choix de modèles de ces nouveaux genres de points. Nos lectrices trouveront, dans les modèles destinés à être exécutés en coton fin, des motifs d’une délicatesse extrême, rivalisant avec la dentelle, et dans les ornements en soie noire, toute la richesse de la passementerie, plus une solidité à toute épreuve.

Nous n’avons pas négligé non plus les travaux en laine, soit au crochet ordinaire, soit au crochet tunisien, et nous donnons une grande variété de points nouveaux pour ce dernier genre dans les premières pages du Manuel.

Nous avons, avant tout, cherché à rendre nos explications les plus claires possible, afin que notre Manuel soit d’une utilité pratique et qu’il fasse bien réellement comprendre ce qu’il se propose d’enseigner.

Enfin, malgré la variété si grande des ouvrages que l’on peut exécuter au crochet, nous pensons avoir donné un échantillon, au moins, de chaque objet auquel ce genre de travail est adapté.

Les dessins, d’une exactitude scrupuleuse, qui accompagnent ce Manuel, donnent une juste idée des différents genres de crochet que nous avons expliqués et en facilitent l’exécution.

Agnès Verboom

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English Translation:

Crochet is, without a doubt, the favored handiwork of ladies; and it deserves, moreover, this preference because of the ease with which it is executed, the variety of its stitches, and the number and usefulness of the items one can create with it.

We therefore thought that a new Practical Manual of Crochet would be well received by ladies. New inventions and clever imitations have recently emerged in this type of work. Irish guipure lace and trimmings are now faithfully reproduced by crochet. We have gathered a wide selection of models of these new types of stitches. Our readers will find, in the patterns intended to be made with fine cotton, motifs of extreme delicacy rivaling lace, and in the black silk embellishments, all the richness of passementerie, along with unfailing sturdiness.

We have not neglected wool work either, whether using regular crochet or Tunisian crochet, and we present a wide variety of new stitches for the latter in the opening pages of the Manual.

Above all, we have strived to make our explanations as clear as possible, so that our Manual is practically useful and truly helps the reader understand what it sets out to teach.

Finally, despite the great variety of pieces that can be made with crochet, we believe we have provided at least one example of each type of item suited to this craft.

The illustrations, drawn with scrupulous accuracy, which accompany this Manual, offer a faithful representation of the different types of crochet we have explained and help facilitate their execution.

Agnès Verboom