Everything about this pattern, before you pay for it
Most pattern listings tell you after. Here is the whole spec.
| What it is | A written crochet pattern, delivered as a PDF. The file itself is titled The Bat Who Hangs Around Your Pet’s Neck. |
| What you make | A half-moon collar for a pet: black double crochet shaped into a pair of bat wings, with a long wing tip at each end, four small points along the edge and a tail at the centre; an orange ruffle standing out from behind the wings; a small black bat head with white eyes at the middle of the neck edge; and orange ties with a bobble ball at each end. |
| Finished size | About 23 cm (9 in) from wing tip to wing tip. The neck edge is about 20 cm (8 in) and each tie about 25 cm (10 in). |
| Fits | It ties on, so it suits a wide range — roughly a 20–50 cm (8–20 in) neck. The photos show it on a corgi and on a golden retriever. |
| Hook | 3.5 mm — the only hook in the pattern. |
| Yarn | 5-ply milk cotton, about a DK weight, in three colours: black for the wings and the head, orange for the ruffle and the ties, and a short length of white for the eyes. |
| Yarn needed | About 10 g (20 yd) of black and 11 g (25 yd) of orange, plus a short length of white. |
| Time to make | About 1 hour. |
| Skill level | Confident beginner, which is what the pattern itself says: five flat rows, one split row, small chain points, and bobbles. |
| Techniques used | A foundation chain, and working back along it · flat rows, turning at the end of each · chain, slip stitch, single crochet and double crochet · the double crochet increase · working into the front loops only, then coming back for the loops that row left behind · small points made from a few chains, slip-stitched back down the chain · a bobble of five unfinished double crochets · changing colour at the start of a row · crocheting onto a finished edge · adding a small detail with a yarn needle · fastening off and weaving in ends |
| Worked in | Flat rows. Each starts with a turning chain — ch 2 before a row of double crochet, ch 1 before the row of single crochet — which is never counted, and nothing is ever worked into it. |
| Number of pieces | One. The ties and the head are crocheted onto the collar. |
| Numbered rows | 5 — two for the collar, one for the wing edge, two for the ruffle. The ties and the head are written out step by step instead. |
| Count checkpoints | Three: 37 stitches at the end of row 2; at the end of row 3, all 37 used, with the points in stitches 1, 7, 13, 19, 25, 31 and 37 and the tail in 19; 37 stitches at the end of row 4. |
| The wing edge | Row 3, in black, into the front loops of row 2: a long wing tip at each end (ch 5, slip-stitched back down), four small points (ch 3), and the tail at the centre, each worked into a single stitch with five stitches between points. The row reads the same from either end. |
| The ruffle | Row 4, in orange, into the loops row 3 left behind — so it stands behind the black edge rather than on top of it. Row 5 is 37 single crochets with a ch-2 between each; the extra chains make it wave. |
| The ties | One continuous orange piece: a ball, a 45-chain tie, 31 single crochets along the neck edge, another 45-chain tie, a ball. Each ball is two five-dc bobbles folded together. |
| The head | Black, worked into the three stitches at the centre of the neck edge, just under the orange: two small pointed ears. Two small white eyes are added with a yarn needle; the photo shows where they sit. |
| Sewing | None. Only the eyes use a yarn needle. |
| Also needed | A yarn needle and scissors. No stitch marker. |
| Terminology | US crochet terms |
| Language | English |
| Left-handed | Written for you too. Work it exactly as written and your collar comes out a mirror image of the photos. Nothing in it is lopsided: row 3 reads the same from either end, and the head’s two ears sit either side of the centre stitch. |
| Delivery | Download link on the confirmation page and in your email, straight away. |
Before it goes on your pet. It ties on, so how snug it sits is up to your knot: leave room to slide two fingers underneath. And it is a crocheted piece with long ties and two bobbles — something a paw can get through and a mouth can get hold of. Put it on for photos and parties while you’re there, and take it off afterwards.
Counted twice
My grandmother taught me on her porch, and she said the same thing every time I tangled the yarn: slow down, count twice, rip it out if it’s wrong — there’s no shame in starting over.
So every pattern in this shop gets counted twice. Once when it’s written. Then again, before it goes on sale: every row is re-added, stitch by stitch, and checked against the row before it.
That’s the whole thing. It’s not clever. It is just the step almost nobody takes, because until a pattern is written down properly you can’t take it — and because nobody was ever asked to show their working.
I’m asking to show mine.
The worst thing a pattern does is not be difficult. It is to be wrong early, so that you find out rows later and spend the next twenty minutes wondering whether it was you. It usually wasn’t you. But you can’t tell, and that not-being-able-to-tell is the part that makes people put the hook down.
On this collar, the likeliest place for that is row 3. It is long, it is black, and every point takes a stitch. If one group between points has four stitches or six instead of five, the last wing tip will not land in the last stitch — and the tail will not be in the middle. So row 3 ends on a placement checkpoint: the seven points in stitches 1, 7, 13, 19, 25, 31 and 37, and the tail in 19.
Counted twice means you can tell. No more counting the same row for the third time, writing it out on paper to make it add up, and still not knowing whether it’s you or the pattern. The count in the pattern is right. If yours doesn’t match it, the slip is in the row you just made — undo that one row and carry on.
You probably have one project in a bag somewhere, stopped at a round you can still name. Often it stopped on a count that wouldn’t come out. Every count in this one comes out, which leaves you the part you came for: finishing it, and tying it on before Halloween.
Here is a real page of it
A pattern that was never crocheted can show you a photograph. It cannot show you a page.
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