She is finished

Blocking, blocking, blocked:



There she is, in all her glory. I apologize for the fearful picture. I let 'im indoors loose with the camera. You know that thing about the monkey and the typewriter and Shakespeare? and how it would never happen in a million years? I give you 'im indoors' ability with the camera:



Note the way the bottom point is so elegantly displayed.

In fairness to him, it was raining and the sky was about as dark as the apocalypse and that's the only excuse I can offer.

There are no pictures of the blocking. I use a heavy white cotton bedspread with a blue check pattern on it, laid on the floor. You can imagine that the shawl didn't show up too well. Some people hate blocking. I love it. I love the way you start with a damp mass of wool and end with the glorious lace. I love the crawling about on the floor and checking to see if it's straight. I love the standing back and marvelling, "Did I make that??"

What I do not love are the thousands of pins. I do not love the stray pin which, like the teaspoon at the bottom of the washing-up bowl, is always there, somewhere, ready to stab you. Stephanie hates blocking. Her friend told her to use a piece of cotton to run through the edges of her shawl and stop that "swoop" that happens between the pins. Someone told me about this but advised using fishing line. I didn't think it would work but I went off to the fishing tackle shop and bought some. The chap's face was a picture as I tried to explain why I wanted it. I threaded it through the edges; I threaded it through the 156 picots; I pulled it; I put in about 50 pins and it worked! Pre fishing line days I would have used about 500 pins on something like this so let's hear it for fishing line. There isn't even any need to cut the line, so you can use it again and again.

Vital statistics:

Heirloom Shawl
Pattern from Canadian Living Magazine
Yarn: 7 25g balls Jamieson & Smith Shetland 2-ply lace-weight wool Shade: Optic White Lot #: 01549/a
Total weight: 168g
Needles: 3.5mm circular
Blocked length:(back neck to bottom point) 120cm (47in)
"Wingspan": 240cm (97in)
Started: 17/02/05
Finished: 20/05/05

So that's it. I feel bereft.