Progress and Crochet a Necklace

Yesterday's teacher meeting took a good chunk of the morning, but was far less stressful that I built it up to be. This means I had the time and inclination to get working on all sorts of things. I finished up the second circle cardigan gift and I finished writing up the pattern for the Gothic doily.

I grabbed a few different colors that I had an excess of so that I could start making it using the written pattern. I figured I can be my own test tatter first. At least I can try while I work on the pictures for the pattern. If you hadn't guess by now I can't be bothered to learn how to diagram patterns, so photos are my thing. I'm only on round 3 now, not counting the center, so it might still be awhile before it's ready for prime time. I did already find a mistake in my written pattern, so it really is serving two purposes.

While I have some eyes though, I have a question for any shuttle tatters out there. It's quite simple to work the woven rings with the needle, can they be worked as easily with the shuttle? I just don't know and I'd like to answer the question of whether this pattern can be worked both ways correctly. I've always assumed everything that can be done with one, can be done with the other, but since me and the shuttle are in a lifelong battle, I don't actually know that that is true. So please straighten me out here!

In other creating news I used some of the leftover yarn from the circle cardigan to make an additional gift and I thought it look pretty neat. I just had fun making it and it was so easy that I thought I'd give a little tutorial on it.

Crochet Necklace

It's a medium weight yarn and I used a size F hook to crochet a tight chain 125" long. Then I joined to the beginning chain and formed one long loop.
I wrapped it into 5 loops and then using a J hook I crocheted about 7 single stitches around the whole bundle and finished by slip stitching through the tops of those stitches just to give it a little more decoration.