Crochet | Doilies

: In the Victorian era, young ladies were expected to craft doilies for their "hope chests" as a mark of domestic skill.

Doilies are practical demonstrations of Euler’s formula for planar graphs (V – E + F = 1 for a flat disc). Each stitch cluster acts as a vertex; chains act as edges. For a flat doily, the number of increases per round must match the round number multiplied by a constant (typically 6 or 8). Failure leads to ruffling (too many increases) or cupping (too few). crochet doilies

If your doily starts to ruffle (wavy edges), you have too many increases. If it curls up like a bowl, you don't have enough. : In the Victorian era, young ladies were