Knit Collars Booklet 2 Elegance If You Have Time By Joan Young on Jul 01, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

The four lacy collars in this booklet have good directions, but don't tackle them unless you are a skilled knitter.

I got this flyer at a marked down price of 87 cents and figured that I'd try these out. As you can see in the pictures, I made the one pictured in black on the cover, called “Leaf.” The others are named “Crocus,” “Houses,” and “Bear Paw.” Each collar is a slightly different shape, and each has a lace design knitted in. Three of them have ribbon threaded through knit-in eyelets and are tied. Crocus is fastened with a small button.

These are knitted with bedspread weight cotton and take about 280 yards for each collar. Leaf and Crocus are made on size 2 straight needles, and the other two need a 16" circular needle, also size 2, but I don't know why you couldn't do them on long straight needles since you don't knit them round and round, but rather back and forth.

OK, so who knits anything these days with needles and thread that small? I must be nuts!

Well, it was fun just to see if I could do it. The biggest problem is that the designs are complex, and you can't just mindlessly knit away while watching TV. If you mess up a count, the pattern won't come out right. If you have tried anything like this before, you also know that bedspread cotton has no stretch and your tension must be very even to have the finished result look good. And the black was terribly hard to work on, because it's difficult to visually tell where you were if you do lose count.

I thought that the collars might be classy enough to sell. But they take so much work that you could never recoup the time. I put a price tag of $20 on the one you see in the picture, and I haven't sold it yet.

The pattern was accurate and the gauge was good. Although it looks just like the picture on the flyer, I was disappointed that after spending hours knitting the pretty leaf design into the collar, you can't see it at all unless you spread the collar out.

I haven't yet tried any of the other designs. I might be in the mood again some time, but not in black unless I know that someone wants to pay me money to do it.

This booklet regularly sold for $1.75 and is not too old so you should be able to find it at second-hand sellers.