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How does Penelope delay choosing one of her suitors?

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Sixteenth-century engraving by Hieronymus Wierix depicting Homer, shown as an older man with a beard and laurel wreath, wearing a draped garment. — Odyssey: A Reader’s Guide to Homer’s Epic Engraving of Homer by Hieronymus Wierix, 16th century; in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope famously used her intelligence to delay the 108 aggressive suitors vying for her hand during her husband Odysseus’s 20-year absence.1

Her primary delaying tactic involved a ruse regarding a funeral shroud for Laertes, Odysseus’s father. She insisted that she could not remarry until the shroud was completed. To stall for time, she spent her days weaving the garment, only to secretly unravel her work each night. This deception allowed her to maintain hope for her husband's return for three years until a maid eventually exposed the secret.213

After her ruse was discovered and the suitors pressured her to choose a new husband, she devised a second challenge: an archery contest. She declared that she would marry whichever suitor could string Odysseus’s great bow and shoot an arrow through the handles of 12 axes. This contest ultimately provided the opportunity for the disguised Odysseus to reveal his identity and reclaim his household.1