Crochet Puff Neckalce

Way back when, when I was but a wee thing in grad school, I had a conversation analysis course with a professor who ran off to Kenya and had all sorts of adventures before getting her PhD under the guru of all sociolinguistic gurus at UCLA.  If that wasn't cool enough, one of my classmates was an Italian woman who was not only brilliant, but who wore heart-achingly chic outfits completely handmade from natural linen and felted wool.  I, on the other hand, wore jeans and showed up late to class every day because I was too busy smooching Mr. Mersy.  It was a great semester.  

It was very probably the best class I ever took, and when I saw this Italian crochet video tutorial (click here), it took me back to afternoons spent painstakingly analyzing phone conversations from the 70s.

Although I'm not a big fan of felted wool, I do love rough, "unfinished" wool, and I happened to have a few skeins of Noro laying around, just waiting for the perfect project.  I couldn't afford to buy enough to make anything substantial, but the colors and the texture were too wild and deep to pass up.  

I did, however, re-work the pattern so that the bobbles were three-dimensional and shell-shaped rather than flattened discs.  Here's how I stitched them: chain four, in the first chain stitch five halfway incomplete double crochets (trebles in UK terminology), then pull through all six loops on the hook and secure with a single chain.  This gives them a nice, puffy look.

Whenever I want to feel irresistibly chic and unstoppably cerebral, I'll slip on my Italian wool-bobble necklaces and be ready to take on life with a little bit extra panache.

Lots of love,
~Mersydotes