Basic Filet Crochet Tutorial With Free Pattern Link ~ Damask Doily Free Crochet Pattern ~ How To

Hey everyone, it's Deja from crocheteverafter.com. Today I'm doing a viewer request, and they had a request on how to do some basic fillet crochet. So I'm diving right into showing you all the basics, plus a little bit of extra stuff. So we're going to do this motif here, which is not a square or rectangular motif like a lot of filet crochet, so that I can show you not only the basic stitches and how to read your graph, because it's a little different from just any other kind of graph, but I'm also going to show you how to increase and decrease at the beginning and ends of rows. So we're going to make this whole thing, or I'm going to show you how to make The stitches as I create this so that you can see how to increase plus decrease up here so you're going to learn all of those basics for filet crochet while I make this little motif here. So I'm using worsted weight yarn just so you can see the stitches easier. Usually for filet crochet you're going to use thread, but this is just going to be easier for you to see on camera. So I'm going to go ahead and get started on that and show you how to do this. So to get started with our filet, this is a graph of what I'm going to make. And I'm doing not a square filet pattern, but something Something that has. staggered edges that way I can show you how to increase and decrease when you're working with the ends of your rows or the beginning of your rows so each of these squares is one fillet square and each row is just one row of crochet so this isn't a huge project I wanted to keep it small so you can get through it quickly but it's going to show you how to create the closed Close squares and the open squares. So every little line that's between, we need to create all of that. It's going to be an open mesh wherever we don't see colored in the box. So if you're working a fillet pattern that does not include... I want to show you this real quick. My pattern software that I use for the fillet crochet It's called fillet crochet. It has an option to give you the stitches In a stitch chart, so this is the exact same thing that we see here, but it's in crochet stitches. So if you're familiar with reading stitch charts, you'll see the chains and the double crochets, which is mostly what you're going to use when you make fillet crochet. Not always, sometimes you will use maybe a puff stitch or something else, but for the most part all fillet is kind of double crochet and chain. Now this software is a little bit off because it Because it likes to do. Four chains for the beginning of the row. So you can see I changed the beginning chain amount because it creates the three chains that usually count for a double crochet and they stick it on top of another chain. Usually we don't do that. We go right into the fourth chain and begin double crocheting. So that's kind of an adjustment that has to be made. But this is kind of to help you remember how each box works. This is very important. When you are making your boxes and your mesh, so the open squares, each double crochet of the box before is the ending crochet for that box and the beginning crochet for the next. So, what that means is, I have this box here, well actually it's going to be this one because we always start in the bottom right hand corner of our chart. Because just like as we're crocheting, you do your foundation chain, you turn, and then you work back this way. So you're going to be reading your chart as if you were working your crochet back and forth. So as you make it, when you crochet it, it grows from the bottom and you work at the top. So this will create it just as you're reading it. So that means when we start over in this box here we're going to put four double crochets to create this one closed box but the last double crochet of this box is going to count as the first double crochet of the next box and so forth and so forth so this next box the last one is going to be for the first one. So what this means is you're going to have kind of the best way to think about this And to remember. how to keep track of these boxes so that you're not going like oh god is this is this double crochet for this box or that box do i count did i count it already think of each of these lines that are separating the boxes as a double crochet so this double crochet this line here is double crochet this one's double crochet and then just work the box that you see so that means a line here would be a double crochet then we're just going to do two double crochets for this box Then we're going to do one crochet for this line, one double crochet, and then two here. So you can see that we have just a big old pile of double crochets here. But when we get to the fillet mesh, you'll see this is these two boxes here. So we have, switch it around, move this down a little more so we can get it right on top. Okay, so we have this line here, which would be the double crochet for the very first box. It's also the last double crochet of this box. Then we have two chains that's going to create the open work of this box. Then we have the double crochet and two chains for the next one and then the double crochet for that line. So as you're working your graph, so you don't get confused, just count each of these lines as a double crochet and then either do two double crochets or two chains depending on if you have a closed box or an open box. So that is the tip. I'm reading your graph so if you don't have the stitch chart like this just remember the outer and inner count those double crochets as your lines and then do two stitches for each box so either two chains or two double crochets. So we're gonna get started now and start making this. So we'll go through, I'm just going to use the chart because that's usually what you're going to have, especially in old fillet patterns that you might have gotten out of a vintage pattern book. You're just going to have this, you usually won't have the stitch chart with it. So go ahead and we're going to start with a chain 15. The way that I figure that is I see how many, so remember we have lines, so you can say one, two, three, four, five lines. Let's separate each of our boxes, and then we have 2, 4, 6, so we have actual double crochets in between the lines, so we do 8 plus 5 is 13, and then we add 2 to our foundation chain to make double crochets, so we're chaining 15, so whatever amount of stitches you need, if you're making a base of double crochet, add 2 foundation chains to that total amount, so we're going to chain 15. So, the very... The first three chains that we're going to skip are going to count as our very first double crochet, so that's that outer line of our box. Even though there's no actual line because it's just a box, we have to visualize that line so we don't miss a double crochet. We're going to yarn over, skip these first three chains, one, two, three, and work into the chain, the fourth chain. I'm using worsted weight just so it's easier to see. If I was using crochet thread, it'd be a lot smaller and harder to see, but that's what you usually want to use for filet because it gives a nice super stiff item at the end. This you can use. You can also use worsted if you want a really big filet. No problem, you just want to starch it. So, we did one double crochet, so remember this box here, we need to do two double crochets to fill in the box. Your second one. Then we come to our line separating the next box, so we do our double crochet for that line to the next box. So even though we know we're just double crocheting all the way across, I want to go over the boxes so that it makes more sense as we work the line for our next box. So we're going to separate our two boxes. Two boxes in that third square. Another two double crochets separating the second to last from last. Two more for the very last square. I'm not going to do this thing step-by-step. I just want to start the first couple rows together. And then we have one for the very last line. We're going to get crazy right at the beginning because we already have an increase. So we have our base, this row, done. And then you'll see that we're branching off over here. We have extra stitches. That we don't have here. So if I turn my work and I start crocheting, I have two extra squares over here that I don't have any spot for. So I have to create the stitches, or I have to create the chains to work these stitches into. So that's where counting your boxes so you know how much to increase comes in handy. So remember we have two boxes, so we have two stitches for each box. Then, because this line here would already be worked if we just turned our work to work this way, we need to count the line here and the line here. So these two, let me get this closer to you so you can see better, so we have this line would already be worked. So we have two and two for four and then five and six. So this line and this line. So we need six additional stitches to create those boxes. Plus, we need to add two more chains so that we have the correct amount of foundation chains to be, or the correct amount of chains so when we turn our work and work those stitches, we get the right amount. So we're going to need to chain eight to begin our next row. One, two, three. Now we're going to turn our work. We don't turn our chart because we can't, but you have to remember that we're working it back and forth. So we just did it this way, now we're working this way. It helps that this is symmetrical, so it doesn't really matter if you were to just kind of read it this way. But if your chart is not symmetrical, you have to remember to go back and forth when you read your chart. Okay, so now that we have our eight chains, we turn our work. Just like we did before, we skip those first three chains as our very first double crochet. So that's that outside line that we need to do. Double crochet in the fourth chain. We need to do two double crochets inside of this very first box. Double crochet for the line between the first and second box. Two more here. That should be the end of our chains, which it is. We're on track to the main portion of the work. And if you notice, I was just crocheting into the back loop of my chains. So you can crochet in the back loop, the bottom loop, whatever you want, but once you get to actual stitches, use both loops. So you'll see that I did the back loops for these chains, you see the front loops sitting here, but once I start doing these stitches, I'm going to use both loops. So now I'm right here at this stitch, so I need to begin that stitch in the stitch of the last stitch I made of the last row, the middle stitch. And I have one more closed box. I need two double crochets, and I have a line separating the closed box from the open box. One more double crochet, and then we create our open box. So open boxes are two chains. We do two chains, and a double crochet, and one double. Make sure you skip two stitches. You don't want to put it right in your next stitch because that's not going to give you an open box. So you do chain two, you skip one, skip two, and then double crochet in the third stitch. Repeat that for our next open box. Chain two, and create your line here. One, two, and then go into the third closed box, the ending line. So we have three stitches left on our main portion here, but we still have two more boxes to crochet. How do we increase on the end of a row? This is the fun part. It's crazy to increase on the end of a row, right? You can't chain because your chains are up top. So we're gonna increase the row as you work. Any different or differing opinions on where to place your hook? But we need to create a space for your stitches to grow off of because we can't just chain up here because we can't like flip it and add stitches. We have to create the stitches or allow the stitches to come out of here out of thin air basically. So we're going to yarn over and what I like to do is I like to catch this back loop right here. So if you look at the Right at the front of your double crochet, you have the loop which is attached to the to your stitch at the top then you have this one that comes across the front and then you have another one that comes across the front to the left of the last one these are kind of like your front stitches then if you turn your work to the side you'll see kind of where the loop of this one comes out on the back i like to go into that loop sometimes when you first do your very first one you'll see people work into the row below But because you're going to be working into this loop for every single increase stitch, or this is the one that I choose to work into that it's kind of the cleanest look, for me at least, I just go ahead and start using that right away. So you yarn over, just like you would for double crochet, and then you're going to go through that one loop. Again, if you look at the back of the stitch, it's kind of like a little single crochet looking stitch. You have a V and a V, or a V, one side of the V and the other side of the V. So go through that stitch right there, just that one loop, and then finish your double crochet as normal. Pull up your loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. So now we've just created a double crochet out of thin air, and we have to keep doing that. So that was the first of the two for this box here. So we're going to do another one. So we're going to yarn over and now we're going to work off of the last one we just made. So we're going to go into that loop of the last double crochet. Pull up your loop, yarn over, yarn over. Now we have the main two. This second to last. Now we need the line. Now we need the line. So go again. So this is the strange area when you're increasing. If you have a square filet pattern, that's why they make most of them kind of square or rectangle, because doing this increasing is not always fun, and it's kind of an advanced thing to do, but I'm teaching you everything right now, so you can go ahead and do whatever pattern you find. So that's your middle line, now we just need two more for the center and one for the end, so we're going to do three more all together. When you have these kind of I don't want to say three-dimensional, but not a square, not a rectangle. You're going to need to block it at the end to get these nice and square. The square that I mean to get the rows nice and square and even in line. So now you see that we've increased on both ends. We have the chain increasing, and we have increasing off of the previous stitch. Still symmetrical. Now, we're going to turn our work, so we have this last one done, this is just a normal work, and this is a very simple row because it's got lots of mesh. Turn, chain 3, which is going to count as our very first double crochet, so we do not work into that first stitch here, because that's what this stitch is taking the place of. Then we have a closed square, so we're going to do 2 double crochets. I'm going to square in our next open mesh, so we need one more double crochet, and then the way that I like to count these open meshes to make it a little bit easier and faster than having to go back and forth to the chart, is just count how many you have, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So I know that I'm going to do chain 2, double crochet, chain 2, double crochet, I'm going to repeat that 6 times, so I chain 2, double crochet, skip 2, I do this 6 times to create That next section of mesh, if you're doing it correctly, your stitches should line up with the previous mesh. So I should have a double crochet where this one is, I should have a mesh right on top of my last mesh, and I double crochet in that center one, that's how you know you're counting correctly, because if you have your double crochet in the middle of your mesh, you are off somewhere. This stuff is very symmetrical, very on top of each other. Okay, so I finished the last of the six meshes, and then I only have three stitches left, which are the three for this very last box. The two centers and the one edge. Hopefully by now it's making sense of how you count these stitches and how you space out your double crochets and your meshes and how to work these lines and everything. So our next row we do some more increasing. So let's increase again so you can see how that's done. So remember we have to count how many stitches we're going to need out here. So we don't count the line that is attached to this crochet. That's two closed body stitches. Add two for the correct amount of chains to create our extra double crochet. so we chain 5 In case you didn't know. One way to chain. Not upside down, because when you turn your work and you start chaining, if I do that, then it creates kind of an upside down chain, which you can still work into, it's just a little bit different. So chain before you turn your work, and then you'll see that when I turn, they're facing right side up, I don't have the bottom bump sitting there. So that's another tip that I can share with you. So we skip those first three again, that's our first double crochet, double crochet in the next one. And the one after to create our closed box, the base of the main portion of our live. Then we're going to do the line between this box and that box. Two more double crochets for the closed box and then we have two open. See we're lining up here on our pattern for the openings Want to get to the closed on top of the open so you can see how we work those. Two chains These are easy because you don't have to count the stitches you're skipping. You just go right to the next double crochet. So you can see we did the two on top of two. Now we have two closed boxes. So when you do these, you have two choices. You can either work in just your chains and do your stitches that way, or you can work all the way around the chain. I usually just work all the way around the chain, but it's up to you whether you want to work all the way around the chain or into just one loop, so you get kind of a completely covered chain if you work all the way around. Otherwise you'll just get kind of the stick out chain like we have over here. I do two for the closed box. The most important things to remember is read your chart correctly, read it in the right direction, so if it's not symmetrical like this, you do not end up only reading from right to left and your whole pattern is cuckoo because you have every other row correct, but every other row is the wrong way. Another thing is to understand your increasing and decreasing, how to... I'm going to go all the way up to here because I think you understand the increasing. I'm going to do this increase real quick. So I'm going to do my two for the second to last box more than I need to do. So remember grab that back loop, pull up double crochet, pull up double crochet, yarn over So that does not change how you increase on the ends, how you work around your open meshes, and how many Closed or change you make for each box that all stays the same. So we're going to go all the way up to here And then i'm going to show you how to do the decreasing To get the rest of the pattern so i'm going to work this up here and come back to the decreasing Finish the fillet crochet all the way up through all of the increasing. You can see all of my increasing happening And then we have this whole Section of straight up rows and now we are at our decrease row. So it's row 11. I'm now Now, room. Removing one full block to begin my next row. So to do that Decreasing is much easier than increasing When doing filet. We're going to do slip stitches at the beginning of the row We'll do something different at the end of the row, but at the beginning of the row We're going to slip stitch the amount of stitches we need to get rid of So, because we have a full block, normally you would say we need to slip stitch three, because we still need our very last stitch to make the first post of this block that we're starting with. But I'm going to have you slip stitch four, so let me show you why. So to slip stitch, you're going to insert your hook under both loops like you normally would, and then two loops, yarn over, pull through, pull through the loop on, and it lays right on top of our previous stitch, So it's not too noticeable. I'm going to do that two more times, and then here's the third one, so normally if you're removing a block, you would remove three stitches because you need the fourth stitch to begin this next block, so this would be my next full block here, these four stitches, but notice if I chain three, which would be my first stitch of the block, It looks like it's coming out of this third stitch instead of this fourth stitch where I want it. So when I go to make my double crochet, because remember we skipped that stitch that the chain three counts for, when I go into the next stitch to make my double crochet, I get a crazy leaning stitch that does not look good at all. So what we're going to do to fix that is just slip stitch one more stitch. So we're going to do the full block of four. Because that chain 3 kind of comes out of where we need our stitch to be. So now we're right on top of that post that we need to create this very first block. So just like we've been doing, we will chain 3 and do our 2 stitches for the middle of the square. And then one more stitch for the line between the block and the open mesh that's next. And continue across the same way that we've been doing. So I'm going to get to the end of the row here so I can show you how you're going to decrease at the end of the row, which is the easiest of all. So let me get over there and then I'll show you. Alright, I just completed the last mesh of decreasing row and then I just have this whole block left and then I have nothing after that. So the super easy way to decrease at the end of a row goes like this. I do my two double crochets. for the middle of my square and then the very final double crochet for the last ending border. Then I have three stitches left which represent this empty square, the square that was from the row below. So to decrease these, I'm done. I just turn and I start working my next row. I just leave those unworked, get through whatever there. And then I just go ahead and do my next row. So we'll, I'll go through this row. And I'll get to the next row where we're decreasing even more so you can see how to do that. Same stuff, I'm just gonna go over it again so you have it down-packed. I'll go ahead and do this off-camera so you don't have to watch me do the entire row. So I'll be back in just a minute. Okay, I got to the end of the row that I just did. Now I've got another decrease, deeper increase. I'm removing... So we have the side post, and then the two for the full square in the middle, which is... And then two for this square. So we're doing six stitches all together, and then we have that post that we need to make to create the next. So we're going to slip stitch six, actually seven, because we want to get on top of that post again. So six stitches are going bye-bye, and the seventh is where we're going to begin the chain three. So just like before, we are going to insert, actually seven, in this last post. You'll remember. Don't worry if you're like, I am not going to remember to do that. You'll remember as soon as you start making your stitch, because you're going to have that slanting post that we did earlier at the very last stitch. So you're basically going to just line it up. So now I'm here where I need to be. I have two closed squares, so I need to chain three of my first one. You should be lining up, so as you're working, look at the row below. Make sure that you have four on top of four. I have the end post. You can see we have open and open, two opens, open space here, and a double crochet. You can see, as you work, you'll get used to doing those four stitches, figuring out the first and the last, working as the kind of the borders for each square. It's not too difficult. I think I'm actually not even paying attention to my chart here. This is supposed to be an open one. I'm going to go ahead and finish this off to see what it looks like all complete, come back and show you before I finish this video. And just a last stitch of my crochet project, I'm fastening this off. If you're doing actual thread crochet, it's all the same stuff. You're gonna fasten off the same way, weave in your ends. And then if this was going on display somewhere, I would block it. With the worsted weight, it's almost pretty good how it is. It's not too bad. But I would take my pins and make sure... I'm going to make sure there's something here, something a little bit easier to see. Grab all of these corners where we did the increasing, so the increasing off of the previous stitch. Just make sure you pull those corners out and you pin and you'll get nice edges like how you did the chain increasing. So it will be barely noticeable, especially with the thread crochet. With larger yarn it's more noticeable because the stitches are just bigger, but with thread crochet it's really hardly noticeable. Actual stitches kind of all blend together, so your designs will look much more pleasing in the smaller thread than in this large, you can see, this is kind of like a muddled, you can't really make out this looks like this, but if it was in thread, it would look a lot more like the picture. So definitely try out thread if you've never tried it before. Or if you just need practice, use worsted and then use thread when you're done. That is your basic filet crochet tutorial. If you have any questions, leave them below and thank you for watching!