Neck Lace: Finishing and Ideas for Wearing

re-looking at “necklace” as “lace for your neck”

A Retrospective on Words that Contain “lace”

Perhaps because I am partial to lace, I’ve become fascinated with finding words containing “lace”. I stumbled on this quite by accident when considering a name for a new design last Spring. It was a simple sampling of stitches, yet with intricate crossings and inter weavings. I wrote down the word “interlacement” as part of a working title. And then went into a near giddy stage when I saw the “lace” part of that word. I then realized this was perfect to convey the design meaning, and I eventually called that design “Lacy InterLACEments“.

Thanks for humoring me while I reflected on that. It is all leading up to the concept behind this October’s BOBBOL project.

Lace for Your Neck

As I began designing the small neck piece project for this month’s knit-and-learn-along, I looked beyond “necklace” to the idea of something that could be thought of as “lace for your neck” — thus opening up the possibilities for different ways to wear.

The origins of the word “necklace” are obscure per my etymology research. I do amuse myself in believing, though, that  necklace might have been not quite the jewelry we envision today, but rather any lace piece around the neck.

And that is why I intentionally broke up of necklace into 2 words in the pattern name Beaded Crescent Neck Lace.

Finishing the Neck Lace

• A light blocking will help set your stitches and keep beads in place.
• If you want to wear as a traditional necklace, use the cast on and bind off yarn tails to sew clasps in place before trimming the tails, i.e. fewer to yarn ends to finish and weave in later

Ideas for Wearing Neck Lace

Let your imagination soar. Play around and see what you come up with. I think that you will be pleased with how the weight of the beads keeps things in place.

Here are some basic options I photographed to get you started thinking of your own creative ways of wearing neck lace —

Some people have already posted pictures of their Beaded Crescent Neck Lace projects on the KAL Photo Challenge page, and I hope you will, too. Take a look at it for additional inspiration.

A Word about Lace

What words have you come up with that contain “lace” in them? Who know, we might need to start a lace-athon of lace-word projects, lol.