The magic of blocking

I finished a big green project: the wavy lace shawl from a Vogue pattern book in the library (alas, I don't know it's title - I copied the pages to keep the pattern).  It turns out to have interesting rippled edges.  Here's how it looks right off the needles:

You can see the rippled edges, but the lace pattern is squashed together and the edges roll under when you aren't looking at them.  I have a zillion other things to do, but I really felt the need to block this bad boy and get it done.  I cleared floor space and put together a 2 x 3 grid of 2' square foam pads to hold it, and hoped it would be long enough, because that's pretty much all the floor space I could find.  I filled a bowl with water, dunked it in and squeezed out the air and left it to soak while I went to pick up pills for my weird nervous kitty.  Squeezing out the water from something this big was a challenge, so it's wetter than I usually leave blocked things, but it should dry before it gets moldy.  I pinned it out, using blocking wires to capture the outermost stitches of each edge curve and to hold the straight edges at the end.  And voila:

When it's dry, it will spring back some, but for the most part it will keep its shape and not curl under.  Then I'll weave in the ends and fold it and put it away for the fundraiser.  It was fun, although a little tricky doing the first end section - if you lose stitches, it doesn't look anything like it does in that picture just above.  That was cause for some ripping back and some swearing, and I can still see a one-row difference, but I'm not going to point it out.

I still have more than 2 skeins left.  Time to hunt for a new pattern.

Mistakes were made

I'm sure I have urged you to read the directions all the way through before starting a project.  Now I'm going to urge you to read them through again when you get to the end if there is finishing work involved.  I finished the granny squares for the felted bag, felted them, pinned them out to equal size, and sat back, feeling the glow of a job well done.  Except that it wasn't well done.  Had I paid more attention I would have known to SEW THEM TOGETHER BEFORE FELTING, which I only checked once I tried to figure out how to sew the felted pieces together.  Well, now I feel stupid.  I not only missed that, I missed the instructions to do a row of single crochet around the edges after sewing the pieces together.  All hope is not lost, but it's going to be tougher to make a bag of these than it would have been.  There are decorative openwork embroidery stitches that can be used to join hemmed edges that would work here, so I will choose a color that doesn't try at all to be unobtrusive and get to joining.  Still, now I'm doing it the hard way because I didn't reread the instructions.

I bought yarn today, even though I have absolutely no need to, but I was in Lahaska, PA, for brunch with people I worked with a long time ago, and there was a yarn store so I had to go take a look.  Twist in Lahaska has a very nice selection, and if you're interested in spinning they can help you with that.  I settled for two skeins of Avalon Multis cotton/acrylic for a baby sweater, on sale.  Once I pick a pattern that can join all of the others bagged up and waiting for my attention.

I'm close to the end of two shawl projects.  One, in worsted weight, will go much faster than the one in laceweight that has over 400 stitches per row, but the end is in sight for both, yeehaw!  Then I can let myself start something new.  Something larger, like a baby blanket, or something quick for some instant gratification?

I picked out 3 projects to take on my vacation, during which I anticipate waits in airports, on planes, in hotels, etc during which yarn work should take place.  Projects that don't require multiple colors, or stitch holders, or cutting and reattaching.  One is Sockhead Hat in a brightly stripey sock yarn - nothing exciting to do, just miles of small-gauge stockinette for when I might have to pay attention to something other than my hands.  Two is the Cassiope shawl/scarf in a yarn made of what looks like 4 strands of separately variegated purple and white yarns twisted together.  More of a pay-attention-to-me lace pattern for quiet times.  Third is the Autopilot Cowl, which claims to be a simple pattern that lets the yarn be the star, so a skein of Noro Kibou will go into that.  I have less yardage than the pattern calls for, but I'll just make it shorter.  I think that's enough to hold me for my free time during 16 days of travel.  I'll be in Scotland, Ireland, and Iceland, all good places to find yarn, so I may come home with a sweater's worth of Aran or a hat's worth of Lopi.

And just for so, here's a good link on the difference between knitters when it comes to gauge.  The scientist in me likes how she graphed the results.  And if you follow to the end of the page she has a link to an experiment in which she subjects identical swatches to different kinds of blocking to see whether a stretched block will retain its new size.  Short answer, no - if your gauge is off, there's not a lot of permanent change you can effect by blocking.  So fight the urge to dive into a project, and check your gauge before you do.