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November & December: Irish Crochet Lace notes (Fig 73 - 84 Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No.1)

Crochet Ciúin

It's January 2025 and I'm only just catching up on here for November & December - I spent 6 weeks at home in Ireland over the Christmas period and so I was a bit slower with my making. I used it as a time for reflection about my practice, but more about that in my next post. It has been quite a while since I've made most of these patterns so I will just share brief notes and photographs in this post. All of these patterns are made up of motifs from earlier sections in the book so there wasn't too many challenges that came up.


General note: I work & write with UK Terminology. All of the patterns are from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912) which I downloaded for free from the Antique Pattern Library.


Jump straight to:

Fig 73 (page 20)

Fig 74(page 20)

Fig 75(page 21)

Fig 76page 21)

Fig 77(page 22)

Fig 78(page 22)

Fig 80(page 24)

Fig 81(page 24)

Fig 82page 25)

Fig 83(page 25)

Fig 84(page 26)



NOVEMBER & DECEMBER : IRISH CROCHET LACE MOTIFS (page 20 - 26)

Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (from The Antique Pattern Library)


Fig 73 & 74 and Fig 75 & 76


Fig 73 & Fig 74, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Fig 73 & Fig 74, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)


Fig 74 & Fig 75, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Fig 74 & Fig 75, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)


Looking back at these patterns I can't fully remember these being particularly hard but when I look at the instagram post I put up - they seemed to have tested my patience a lot! Here are some of the notes I had from my instagram:


  • These are all worked in the hand. The book gives you the exact instructions for working the background filling which is unusual and I feel it would be easier to just freestyle the background netting. I frogged ALOT for Fig 73.




At the beginning of the Priscilla book they actually write

"In Ireland, where the lace is so extensively done, no directions are given for the background, because if minute directions for fillings could be written, they would be so extremely intricate that to attempt to follow them would drive most workers distracted"

.... I was well able to imagine after making Fig 73!


  • It turns out (my guess) that there are two misprints in the fig.73 pattern in the book - firstly a place where they forget to tell you to "TURN" and then instruct you to do a DC instead of a TC. This took a lot of trial and error to realise but once I figured it out the pattern went smoothly. I wrote out the instructions for the first section of the pattern (pictured below) - which I divided into mini parts (easier to follow) and I added in the two missing parts (highlighted) - should you ever do these patterns I hope this will help greatly!



  • It's best to use the same size thread for the motifs and the background stitches - my pattern wouldn't resolve until I switched back to the original thread size I used for the motifs. I used a size 10 thread and 1mm hook.



Detail of Fig 74, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Detail of Fig 74, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)

Fig 77, 78 & 80 : Medallions



Fig 77,78 and 79 are medallions from the book featuring motifs and borders from earlier in the book. These are pretty straight forward and lovely to make up. I used size 10 thread for fig 80 (medallion, pictured 3rd) and size 20 for fig 78 (medallion, pictured centre).





Fig 81

This is a more complicated medallion than the last three - only because it has more motifs and takes a good bit longer to complete. It's a lovely project to do over a period of time. The pattern recommends a tendril made from a chain of 110 but this wasn't long enough for me - next time I'd try 150/60.




Process Photo of Fig 81, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Process Photo of Fig 81, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
















Detail of Fig 81, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Detail of Fig 81, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Detail of Fig 81, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Detail of Fig 81, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)

Fig 82 & 83


Fig 82 & 83 , Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Fig 82 & 83 , Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)













Fig 84

This pattern was bigger and more beautiful than I expected it to be and I love the Clones Knot filling stitch. I also invested in a basic dress form and I've found it so helpful for visualising and showing how a Irish Crochet Lace piece can be included in a dress design.


Figure 84, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Fig 84, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)



Detail of Fig 84, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)
Detail of Fig 84, Made by Crochet Ciúin - Pattern from Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No1 (1912)


Thank you for reading and I hope this helped - if you have any questions please let me know :)



Read my October roundup here


If you are interested in reading about how I started Irish Crochet Lace I have written a small blog post about it here  and also if you would like to discover the basic Irish Crochet stitches I used in these motifs you can find these here too!


Go raibh míle maith agaibh,

Alexandra (aka Crochet Ciuin)





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