Filet Crochet Pattern Maker
From Any Picture

Yes. 1 upload, generation, and full browser preview and all of its edits are free, with no account required. A $2.99 single-pattern unlock gives you the PNG and printable PDF. Pro ($6.99/month or $39.99/year) unlocks unlimited projects, every export, and every other craft generator.

With the common 3-dc mesh, a solid row of N squares is 3N + 1 double crochet. The +1 is there because neighbouring squares share a stitch — the last dc of one square doubles as the first dc of the next. So a 40-square chart is 121 dc across when fully filled, not 120. Some patterns use a smaller 2-dc mesh instead (a block is 2 dc, a space is 1 dc and 1 chain); check which one your pattern assumes before you count.

From the bottom up — Row 1 is the bottom row of the grid, not the top. A filled square is a block: solid double crochet. An empty square is a space: one dc, chain 2, skip 2. Because the piece is worked flat, the direction alternates every row, so ArtPatt marks each row RS or WS with an arrow for the reading direction, and there's a left-handed toggle that mirrors it. Rows and columns are numbered so you can find your place again after putting the work down.

From a photo of a person or a landscape, realistically no — filet has two states, and a photograph needs dozens. What works is anything that survives being cut out of black paper: a monogram, a name, a heart, an animal in profile, a leaf or vine. Upload it, set the colour count to 2, and the preview will tell you honestly. If the shape is still readable in two tones, you have a filet design; if it turns to speckle, pick a bolder image.

Because it has not been blocked yet, and filet is lace. Fresh off the hook the chain spaces sit closed and the design is genuinely hard to see — this alarms almost every first-timer. Pin the piece out damp, square to its true dimensions, and let it dry. The mesh opens, the blocks square up, and the picture appears. Judge your work after blocking, never before.

Traditionally size 10 cotton thread with a 1.65–1.9 mm steel hook, which is what gives doilies and curtain panels their crispness. Cotton matters more than the weight does: it has almost no stretch, so the mesh holds its shape and the blocks stay square. The same chart in DK or worsted with a 4 mm hook gives you a blanket or a banner instead — nothing about the pattern changes, only the finished size.

No — turn it off, and the preset already does. Dithering fakes extra tones by scattering alternating squares, which is precisely the speckle that filet cannot render: each of those scattered squares would be a real hole or a real block. Dithering and filet want opposite things.

Filet crochet is lace made on a grid of squares. Each square is either a block (filled with double crochet) or a space (double crochet, chain 2, skip 2), so the picture appears as solid shapes against open mesh. Patterns are charts read from the bottom up, one square per block or space, which is why any black-and-white grid design — letters, hearts, flowers, borders — can be worked as filet.

Make them here. Upload a silhouette, a monogram or clip art and the generator turns it into a blocks-and-spaces chart for free, or start from an empty grid and fill squares by hand. For names and words, the crochet letter pattern generator types them straight onto a two-color grid that you work as filet. Every chart shows block counts per row, so it is ready to crochet.