Elegant Equestrian Doily

Rediscover traditional crochet by making a very stylish doily.

Allison: I'm Allison Whitlock and Monster Crochet is back with another fantastic project, this is an equestrian style doyly, absolutely gorgeous. And Briana is going to demonstrate how we actually make this. Now it looks scary because it’s so tiny, but to demonstrate, we're going to use a sport weight yarn so that we can A, see the stitches, and B, just makes it a lot easier when you're starting out. Briana: Definitely, and there's no reason why you can't use sport weight yarn to do a doyly. It would just be a lot bigger. You want to check your gage first. Allison: Now this is our design here, tell me a little bit about this. Briana: This is a grid or a pattern for filet crochet. You can also get filet crochet patterns written as you would any other crochet patterns. But this is a really easy way of really visual way to interpret the pattern. And you actually do read it. The open squares referred to is the filet mesh, and the squares with X’s are referred to as a filet block. And the two of them together create the light and shadow which eventually create the image in our doyly. Allison: Now it does look very complicated, but you're basically using two different kinds of stitch patterns and that is it. Once you work out how to read the pattern, its smooth sailing from there. Briana: Its one step and two steps pattern. Allison: And because this is a little bit tricky, we're going to rate I for intermediate. Okay, how do we get started? Briana: Well we start with a simple slip knot and we're going to crochet a chain that is as long as many boxes we have times two plus one for our starting chain. Allison: So you're basically counting these little boxes on the pattern. Multiplying by two and then you add one extra chain. And that creates the base chain. Briana: And at the end of the chain, we're going to add another two chains as our turning chain because we are working in double crochet. So in this pattern, along the bottom we have 48 boxes, meaning we’ll have 96 chains, plus one, So 97. And then, as a total, including the turning chain, we’ll have 99. Allison: So now that's 99 chains complete, and we're ready to turn and start to create this border. Briana: Now I'm just going to yarn over to create a double crochet. Allison: You're going to the third chain. Briana: And going into the third chain from the puck. It helps if I get them around that first. I always think working in to the foundation chain is the hardest part of crochet. Because you don’t have something sturdy to hold on to yet. Allison: It really is what takes the longest and then once you start to work up, it all happens really quickly. Briana: You just fly right through it. There we go. And including our turning chain, we have three double crochet. Allison: So now you’ve completed two rows of the double crochet, which we can see down here is our border. And now on the third row, we're working up and across. Briana: Each X stands for a box of three double crochet. So I already got one for my turning chain. You go into the first stitch, and double crochet. Into the second. Even though we said that three double crochet represent each X, each box actually shares a chain with the box before it. So you're actually making two stitches for each box. Allison: So those three double crochet that you just completed represents one of these X’s. This line represents a double crochet, there will be a double crochet in the center if you're working on an X. and there will be a crochet on the end. And the filet mesh, again, is the open area of the pattern. In that open area of the filet mesh, you're going to work a double crochet, a chain, and then a double crochet. Briana: Exactly. So you either following your stitch by a double crochet or a chain. Right now, I'm going to chain one, yarn over. I'm going to skip one stitch, go into that next stitch, yarn over. Double crochet is the name. Filet crochet, filet mesh. Allison: So that's that, that open hole is translating to this open area. Briana: Right. and reading across this pattern from right to left, I'm going to be going in filet crochet, chain one, skip one, double crochet. Until about 5 before the end of the row. Allison: You're going to work into open boxes all the way across until you hit the other side of the border where you start to do double crochet or a close fish. So now Briana you’ve been working up quite a way in the pattern, and we're up to about here on our horse, about 29 rows, is it? Briana: Exactly. Allison: And this is a great way using the magnet here on your board to keep track of where you're at. And one thing you want to keep in mind with filet crochet patterns is you work from right to left and then left to right. So that your horses are always in the same place. Briana: I can see by reading the pattern that I have 9 filet mesh boxes to do before I do my first filet block, but I can also just use as a marker the fact that my first filet block is going to be right above a filet block in the row below it. Allison: And you want to be quite precise and really follow the pattern carefully, because if you put an open mesh block in the wrong place, it’s going to really ruin your design. So once you’ve completed all the way up to the design, you’ll have a nice big square. And here is how lovely gorgeous block doyly. Now this one is a little smaller because we use a smaller gage. Smaller hook and a thinner yarn. I love this little guy, does he have a name? Female: Rover. Allison: Rover. Briana: Fred Allison: It’s still debatable.