A friend asked me to make a choker for her. She said she wanted it to be black, lacy and about an inch wide.

I decided to use crochet, rather than tatting.

I agonized over patterns for several days. I was making myself crazy. As a result, I had effectively procrastinated enough to make a couple of other things! I even went so far as to start looking at curtain patterns and dig out my white sport-weight yarn! Bad, bad, bad!!!

My procrastination projects were: the Cosmos Doily, which you’ve seen; and the Five-Petaled Flower Necklace:

It took me longer to make than I expected (about 3 hours!) to make this necklace. I’m just not accustomed to using thread. Hopefully, I’ll get faster with practice.

So, my friend came over for a visit and I was showing her the Cosmos Doily and I suddenly remembered that I still hadn’t made a decision on which pattern to use for her choker. And I felt terrible that I had been so busy on other things, when I should have been making her project.

I had downloaded several bookmark patterns, thinking those would be the easiest to alter into a choker. While I had her here, I made her look at the patterns and she chose one. A tremendous weight had lifted! I now had a plan!

I used size 10 thread (don’t remember the name, I never keep ball bands) and a small, size 7 steel crochet hook.

I measured her neck and decided that I needed to simply double the recipe on the pattern. That will go almost all the way around her neck, but still allow her enough room for tying.

Because she only wanted it to be an inch wide, I omitted the last round and didn’t block the piece.

While making this, I discovered something… I do not like crocheting with black thread. So, the remainder of the ball will be used for tatting projects.

She hasn’t been home for a few days, so she doesn’t know that it’s ready for her. I hope she likes it!

In other news, I got to drive the tractor for the first time yesterday! I just moved it from one place to another, but I had to maneuver around trees and stuff. It was fun! I guess if you harass your sweetie often enough, he will start teaching you things… Now, if I could just get him to teach me to weld, like he said he would…