A WAY TO DO PICTURES/IMAGES/DESIGNS IN CROCHET -- FILET CROCHET

Ruth Sandra Sperling
RSS Designs In Fiber - Get My Handmade on Etsy or Bonanza - or Privately

"Mountain Cabin" - Filet Crochet Image Art Decor

FILET CROCHET --


I discovered Filet Crochet in 2003. I loved it -- I had found a way to do designs, even pictures and words - and a combination of any of them - in crochet thread - or yarn, I guess, but yarn is rather bulky and I do colorwork crochet mostly in yarn (I will discuss colorwork crochet later sometime).


The basic Filet Crochet of blocks and open meshes is actually quite easy. There are more advanced patterns with some variations in stitches and shapes.


You can follow charts or instructions written by others - or using graph paper or something similar on a computer, you can design your own charts for Filet Crochet.


Following are a few examples of some of the Filet Crochet I have done since 2003.

The picture at the Top is from a pattern in a Magic Crochet magazine - I loved it, because it reminds me of being in the mountains in a cabin. I call it "Mountain Cabin" -- it has some more advanced stitches in it - like popcorn blocks and half blocks - that give it texture and the picture a more artistic design. The edging I got out of a book of handkerchief edgings -- I thought it was nice for this as it looks like a picture frame around the filet crochet doily.


This first picture below is of what I called a "Daffodil Bouquet". It is four motifs of a daffodil in yellow - the motif is a design by Elizabeth Hiddleson in one of her books that I have. The edging is my own - the outside edging is done in contrasting white. It sold on eBay.






Last year for the Fourth of July, I decided to do something different - so using some pictures I have, I did a chart of a Flag Bearer on a horse carrying the Stars and Stripes - I crocheted it in white and added a blue, red & white border. It also sold on eBay.



















This one below is a new one in my shop -- it is Filet Crochet In The Round - which is a little different than the basic filet crochet in rows. It is still based on blocks and open meshes, but it is designed to be done in rounds - and you have a round doily or centerpiece as a result. This one is Grape Clusters with Leaves. The center is 8 grape clusters in a ring, which I did in a violet-lavender -- then around that is a ring of leaves in light green. I finished it off with an edging in lavender with wood beads in a dark natural finish. The 3 pictures below show the doily in full and then the detail of the grape clusters and then the leaves - just to give you an idea of one thing you can do with filet crochet.

[Update: the "Grape Clusters with Leaves Small Tablecloth" Sold in 2014 on Artfire since this article was written!!]






This one is a closeup of the grape cluster.







This picture is a closeup of the leaves.






The following is another filet crochet doily I have designed. Currently, it is not up for sale anywhere, though it has been in the past. I like bears, so I decided to do a filet crochet design of a bear head. When I put it up for sale again, it will be for a donation to The Nature Conservancy, which has conservancy preserves where bear habitat is protected -- including one in Montana that has Grizzly Bears there!!! The Nature Conservancy can be found at http://www.nature.org/.

[Update - this one Sold on Etsy in 2011.]








I hope you have enjoyed seeing these pictures of a few of the filet crochet things I have done since 2003.


If you can draw at all - or even copy pictures and want to do a chart of blocks and meshes to make your own filet crochet image -- take out a piece of graph paper and do it!! There are a number of books about it on amazon.com -- the one I like is The Filet Crochet Book by Chris Rankin.


Ruth