Filet crochet help!

[Bex23]

Hi. I am attempting my first filet crochet pattern for a Christmas table runner for my mum. Done alot of crochet over this last year and love it and wanted to make my mum something special! I bought the pattern and tried contacting the designer but no  answer and I need to start it as I've got alot of crochet Xmas projects i want to do! So any help as I'm not sure if pattern is written wrong or I'm missing something.

 

Basically the runner is worked width ways and so the amount of stitches in the row is 60 (remembering its a filet pattern with 4dc in the closed blocks). Row 1. chain 184 and dc (u.s. terminology) into the 5th chain from the hook;dc in each chain across 181.

Row 2. Ch 3, turn work (counts as first dc), dc in next 6 dc, (chain, skip next 2 dc, dc in next dc) 56 times, dc in last 6 dc: 4 solid mesh/56 open mesh.

 

Now my I understand Row 2 fine. Its Row 1 I can't.  If I chain 184 and dc in 5th chain from hook won't that give me 180 dc. And if I chain 184 and did 4th chain from hook (which is what I thought this would be) I would get 181. I feel something is wrong, either the 5th chain from hook bit or the final amount of dc (181). I don't think it can be both.

 

It's alot of stitches to do to find out im wrong to start again. If anyone can give some guidance that would be great!

 

Thanks in advance

 

Rebecca

[bgs]

I often get confused with starting chains and crunching the numbers of how many chains for a number of stitches.  I make extra chains because evidently after about 30 I dont keep count very well.  I make my first row and then pull the extras out.  In trying to understand the actual numbers in this case I chained 10, dc in 5th ch from hook, dc across.  There are 7 dc in that row.  

[Granny Square]

Hi!  I make a lot of doilies, including filet.

I am giving the 'side eye' to your pattern (if it is telling you each mesh is 4 dc).

There is one type of filet called 'gros filet' and uses US trebles, not DCs.  The only ones I've seen written this way very vintage, and use very fine yarn, like modern sewing thread or thinner.  In this version, a filled mesh is 4 US Trebles and an open mesh is 3 chains, TR.

Modern filet (99% of it anyway) uses a scheme of 3 stitches, where;

a filled mesh is 3 DC |||

an open mesh is 2 chains, DC.  |°°     

(read the stitches from right to left, the order you'd make them in if you are right handed.   | is dc, ° is a chain.)

I have seen some, sites, usually blogs, will tell you that open and filled meshes are 4 dc stitches, of which some are 'shared', so the stitch  count is 'sorta 3, sorta 4'.  Nonsense!  These sites are the reason a lot of people run away screaming from filet IMO.  

A row of filet that uses US DC is a multiple of 3 stitches in a row, plus 1 extra.  The reason for the 1 extra: you have to start and end a row with a DC.  If a row begins in an open mesh (see above), you can't start a row with a chain, so you have to start each row with a DC; this is an 'extra' DC that is always there, even if a filled mesh is at the beginning of a row.  This stitch is the only exception to 'each filet stitch is 3 or a multiple of 3'.

This site https://www.hassdesign.com/BasicFiletTechniques/   is the best crochet tutorial IMO.

I will say, however, that someone came here recently with a pattern designed to a different scheme where a filet block was only 2 IIRC, I think it was a Herrschner's pattern.  Is there a link to your pattern on the 'net, at least to what the finished item looks like?  If you follow a typical graphed filet pattern where the graph units are square, but told you each filled mesh was 4 DC instead if 3DC or 4 TR, it's going to be either 'squashed' or 'extra elongated' looking. depending on the direction you work it.

OK. Now, to your pattern - "the number of stitches is 60" I assume you mean meshes not stitches.  If you wanted 60 (filled or open) meshes:  each mesh is 3 stitches (3 dcs, or 1 dc, ch2 sk2), so 60 x 3 is 180 chains, plus that extra 1 dc that I explained above, so chaining 184 and having your meshes be 3 stitches wide is the scheme you are working to, with the extra turning chain being that extra stitch I explained above.  The tutorial I linked to above applies to the scheme you are working to.

Edited October 18, 2021 by Granny Square

[Granny Square]

I hit post too soon.  I meant to say I agree with you, it looks like there is 1 extra chain.  Easy to pick out, tho, as Bgs pointed out it doesn't hurt to chain a few extra on a long-ish chain like 184, better to pick out 1 than be short!

[Bex23]

@Granny Square thanks for the quick reply. I'd never done filet before getting this pattern and u seems to find alot of patterns that said it could be done with a 3dc or a 4dc. This pattern has it as a block is 4dc and two blocks in a row is 7dc. I assumed the formula was the 60 mesh (yes you were right not meaning stitches lol) across so multiplying by 3 is 180 plus 1 plus the 3 for the turning chain. Hence the 184. Is the dc in the 5th chain from hook correct? Should it not be 4th chain? 

 

Thanks 

[Granny Square]

That was why I thought you had an extra chain (easy to fix, as I said above, better to pick out 1 extra than be 1 short).  Normally for a row of straight US DC you chain 2 more DC than stitches you want - to prove this, 'in your head', chain 4, and DC in the 4th ch from the hook.  You have 3 skipped chains which is the turning chain and usually stands in for a DC, and 1 real DC.  Therefore, you chained 4, which is 2 more than the DCs you ended up with.

2 filled blocks in a row DOES NOT EVER comprise 7 stitches, this is what makes me angry with the knuckleheaded filet bloggers who don't know what they are talking about. (sorry, pet peeve of mine because they've created so many confused people who think filet is incredibly difficult, which is sad).  2 filled blocks comprise 6 DC, there is an 'optical illusion' that if there is an open mesh (ch2, DC) made before a filled one, that the open mesh's 1 DC 'belongs' to the 2 filled meshes, when it does NOT.

This is what I meant by bloggers saying meshes 'share' stitches, which is 100% not true.  All you have to remember is that  every, block in filet is comprised of 3 stitches, (or multiple of 3, like lacets that traverse 2 'block widths') and the first stitch in every row there has to be that 1 extra DC, that does not 'belong' to any block.  All you ever have to do is count to 3, and By George you've got it!

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Granny Square