Thursday, December 13, 2007

Two things to be proud of

So, I cast off on the Swallowtail Shawl for my grandmother on December 3. Here's what it looked like:

It's about two feet wide by 15 inches deep here - if you stretch it. Kinda dinky, honestly. Some serious blocking is needed for this puppy.


It needed a bath with some Soak wash - I got a sample in the Aquae scent at the Gourmet Yarn Company a while back. I used about 7 drops/dribbles in a sink of tepid water. (This stuff smells great, by the way!) So I VERY GENTLY pressed it into the wash - since the Malabrigo laceweight is a single ply, it's very prone to fuzzing and *gasp* felting.


After 15 minutes of leaving it alone (yes, I had to set the kitchen timer), I VERY GENTLY (seeing a trend here?) lifted it out of the water, pulled the plug, and let it drain into the sink.


I VERY GENTLY spread it out onto a bath towel, then VERY GENTLY rolled it up and pressed on it to squeeze out some of the excess water. (After all, I was blocking it on my sister's bed. She doesn't know about this, so please don't tell her. It wasn't that wet, anyways.) See how big it's grown already?


Then I put a towel on my sister's bed (she has a queen size bed and I have a twin, okay?) and VERY GENTLY pinned out the scallops. It should be dry by morning!



And this is how much yarn you have left from one skein of Malabrigo Laceweight minus one Swallowtail Shawl. (Plus, I have another skein in the stash - maybe I'll try one of the patterns from Victorian Lace Today next.)

And the other thing to be proud of - I survived Biochemistry! It's OVER!!!

5 comments:

Linda said...

Fresh Lace + Water + Pins = ABSOLUTE MAGIC!

Looks great.

ZantiMissKnit said...

That is so, so, so beautiful! I love the colorway you chose. That shawl is on my to-knit list, with some dark green laceweight alpaca that has lingered in my stash for three years.

Annie said...

So very nice! This shawl is one of the next projects on my list. I can't wait!

serenebeginnings said...

how big is the shawl now that it's blocked? my friend is making her first shawl for her mom for c-mas & is freaking out that it won't be big enough

psammeadred said...

serenebeginnings, I forgot to measure the shawl between blocking it and wrapping it up - silly me! But my best guess is about 50" by 24" or so.