Contentment - Captivating Crochet Collar Completed

The crocheted collar was a delightful Nihon Vogue Year 2 project because it didn't take much time. The pattern was 16 rows of a collar shown in the Year 2 course book. Once Candace and Jean explained the difference to me of when you "go in the stitch" and when you "go in the loop" I was hooked. Get it? Crochet hook? Ok. I know. Pretty corny. It's late and I am tired.
Back to my collar story... I started the project with worsted weight wool and a size G hook. Big mistake. Because I was leaving for Anchorage the next day, Arlene was kind enough to give me some beautiful pale seafoam green silk yarn to crochet the collar with. I followed her lead with a size 2.0 mm hook. That made a huge difference in ease of getting into a rhythm with the pattern and easily looping through the yarn. We had crocheted a swatch in class to calculate gauge. Jean explained how we would adjust the number of repeats to fit whatever garment we would be crocheting a collar for. I needed a final pattern that was 4x the number of repeats in the swatch. A few of us from class are planning to wear black shirts and our collars for a photo op at our next Nihon Vogue class! That is probably the only real use it will get because I have no idea what I will ever do with an adult size, crocheted lace collar!


Naomi had been in lovely Copenhagen during class and she missed the lesson, so a few of us quickly reviewed the crochet project with her. In no time she was off and running. Her trepidation quickly evaporated when she realized that the crocheted collar would not get the best of her by any means.
I am happily content because the project was a fun learning experience and I am anticipating future possibilities of using the learnings from this project elsewhere. One recent Japanese crochet book purchase from Kinokuniya bookstore has me salivating over two of the many crochet designs in the book. Booties in a Mary Jane shoe style with embroidered flowers on the toe cap of each. I haven't embroidered since I was a child, however, I can remember my grandmother teaching me and I would like to make French knot flower centers once again in memory of her! The beautiful baby's dress in the book was the reason I purchased the book. It has multiple graceful, lacy stitches, beautiful scalloped edgings and pearl buttons. After studying the pattern repeatedly, I was too intimidated to think I would ever successfully understand how to do it much less complete it. With the learnings for crochet that I have gained in this last Nihon Vogue project, I may have mustered up enough confidence to give the baby dress a try after all... someday


Book ISBN978-4-02-190405-9