Like an old crocheted doilie, I'll start in the middle

I'm taking on a new project combining my loves of crochet, history, old books and anything else sewing and craft related.  I've been thinking about how to combine the whole lot for a long time, and I think, by Jove, I've finally got it!  

I'm going to stitch my way through Beeton's Book of Needlework.

Mrs Beeton is better known for her Book of Household Management.  Her Book of Needlework was never completed during her lifetime, although her intention was to make it as popular as the Book of Household Management was.  She died in 1865 at age 28.  According to the preface, highly skilled needleworkers were called on to aid in the completion of the book, and it was finally published in 1870.

I'm going to indulge myself and start where I want.  Right in the middle with crochet, because that's my favourite thing to do.  And I'm reasonably confident of being able to follow the instructions and translate them to modern terms.

I'm notorious for starting blogs with the best of intentions and not keeping up with them.  But then I've never blogged about my crochet projects before.  I have a feeling this one will stick.


First up:

Small Crochet Basket

And here's my first  problem.  Figuring out what I'm supposed to be using.  So many yarns and notions are obsolete or use different names now.

Materials:  

• 2 balls of closely-covered white and silver, and 1 ball of pink and silver twine  I'll hazard a guess that she means a metallic yarn and run with that.

• A crochet needle  Well duh! But I wish she'd been more specific about the size.  I can already see this project is going to involve more than my usual helping of trial and error.

When I read further through the instructions I should also have 

• 1 yard of wire to crochet over 
  Ordinary craft wire will hopefully do the job. 

My second problem will be knowing what to do with this basket when it's finished.  It's not exactly an attractive piece of decorative furniture by today's standards, is it?  If I come up with some nifty way of upcycling the thing, I'll let you know.
I'm off to check my stash.  Thanks for reading. Wish me luck...