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Monday, 13 April 2009

Blocking

Something I've always been nervous about doing! If I stretch it too far, will it break? If it breaks, can I fix it?

You know the kind of questions I mean?

Remember Cinnamon Latte? I made it for my Mum to wear on the QE2. She didn't end up wearing it because I hadn't blocked it big enough and it didn't wrap around her comfortably.

Today I spied it and decided enough was enough - I was going to learn how to do this properly. Especially as I managed to block the Miss Lamberts Shetland Shawl and fix the border (which was unravelling as I was blocking it).

Alex kindly donated his bed to this experiment. I soaked the shawl in warm water, wrapped in a towel, walked on it, wrapped in a different towel and walked on it again. By this time it was almost dry, so I took it upstairs with a pot of clothes pins, stripped the pillows and duvet off the bed and slapped down the shawl.

I stuck one pin in and then pulled in the opposite direction and stuck another pin in, then I went halfway between those and pulled again & the same with the opposite. Then I just kept going back and forth.

Eventually I got this!

I think I did quite well, although I'm baffled as to how I'm going to block my next couple of shawls as they're humongous!

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