That’s what my husband always says when I am blocking wool.
Back on March 1, 2003, I started on a shawl in Plum Harrisville Shetland Style. I finished it in February of 2004, and I have been sitting on it for 2 years! Well, I finally got it out while I was on vacation last week, and actually blocked the damn thing.
First, since I knew the sides would be longer than any of my blocking wires, I ran a cotton yarn through each of the points of the edge.

Here’s a closeup of points strung for blocking.

I made a bin of warm water, added some Dr. Bronner’s Lavender Castile soap, and set it to soak for an hour, to remove the wax or spinning oil or whatever it is in the Harrisville Shetland Style. I knitted it off the cone, rather than skeins(which I think come already washed.) I poured off the water, and filled the bin again with the same temperature water I just drained off. I don’t want a big felted thing after all this time!
I did something I have wanted to try for a while, but hadn’t done yet. I have a front loader, and even on the hand wash or wool setting, it sends a blast of hot water at the end of the cycle which always scared me off using it on my woolens. There’s a cycle called “Drain and Spin” so I decided to try that. I put my shawl in, started the cycle and locked it in. Eeee! It was supposed to be an 11 minute cycle, but I chickened out after the first pause. It sort of wings around, stops, and starts up again. So after the first wind down I took it out, and it was almost dry! Why have I been such a chicken?!


Here’s the arty shot.


Here it is, blocked out to six feet!!! on a side. I have four 2’x 4′ Styrofoam insulation blocks, with one 2′ x 2′ piece in the middle keeping them all connected. I started with the corners and then pulled the centers out, and kept going around until I reached the edge of the foam boards. I probably could have stretched it even more if I had more room.


Here’s some closeups of the lace patterns.

Strike a pose!


I doubt I could wear it without folding it.
I can’t believe I didn’t just block this thing 2 years ago. As I was stretching it out, I thought of all the times I’ve moved it from box to drawer to shelf, moving it out of the way of other things, when I could have been wearing it! All the things that have happened in my life since I started this shawl … What a dork. I love it, and I think I’ll make another shawl with some yarn I bought while on vacation. But that’s a post for another day.

I am working on some remodelling, so things may look odd. Should be back to normal soon. 🙂

Knitting of course!
I thought I’d get my xmas knitting done early and get started while on the plane or whilst being the passenger as we drove around New England and Canada, and I did get quite a bit done.
There’s a back:


And some fronts:


And some … oops again! I knit the sleeves together on one needle from the same ball of yarn and naturally, I ran out just before beginning the decreases. See how they are joined there in the middle? Yeah.


I thought I was being so clever, I had a pattern, from Debbie Bliss, who never provides a schematic (which is very annoying, by the way) and some yarn at a completely different gauge.
So I printed some knitters graph paper using the extremely useful page at The ABCs of Knitting. Scroll down the left side menu to Actual Size Graph Paper, and it will allow you to generate PDF files of whatever gauge you need. I love this site and will be so bummed if it ever goes away! Anyway, I made a sheet of the pattern’s gauge, and one for the gauge I got from my swatch. I then followed the pattern and drew out the size I wanted on the pattern gauge page (this is a baby sweater, not adult, so it didn’t take too long). Now, using this drawing, I was able to transfer to the gauge I will be using, and have the measurements at the critical parts of the pattern.
See? But what my pattern didn’t tell me was how much yarn I would need, and I somehow blanked that idea right out of my mind before going on my trip and only brought the one skein of yarn that I had in this color. None of my LYS have it either. I don’t even know where I got it. So, I will be starting over in a blue color instead, of which I have two skeins. I’m glad I actually like the knitting part of knitting, not just the end products.


BTW, whenever there is a thumbnail in my pages, you can click for a larger photo. I never did figure out how to make nice frames around my photos that make it look like they are click-able.
So, while I was waiting for the yarn fairy, I started on the other xmas gift, which is this little cutie:


Do you see it? It’s an Ernie sweater! Although I will be trying a few things to get the sleeves right when I get to them, see how they are along the length of the sleeve instead of around? Anyway, I think it’s cute, and hope the recipient will like it, or at least his mom will like it.

And now time for a rant

Frakking TSA!! I bought brand new locks for our trip, with the special TSA approved locks so that they can use a key to open our bags and rummage to their hearts delight, and the assholes didn’t bother to open the locks, they just broke the zipper on a $600 TUMI suitcase instead. And they left a nice note saying basically, “fuck you” to add insult to injury. And then they did it again on the trip home. And that’s $600 1990 dollars, so to buy a new one, looking at the TUMI website, is about $1000. This bag has been back and forth to France several times, all across the country when my huz was travelling internationally and in the US on business, and never had a scratch on it. I blame those paranoid NYC assholes. I’ll bet, since we went through JFK, that they did it there. And on my bag, they broke the lock, even though it has a keyhole that THEY REQUIRE, but they just decided not to use!! And on my bag, they didn’t even leave a note. How nice, I feel so safe now.
And if I complain, who knows, maybe I’ll become one of the disappeared, a new status of citizen made legal last week by our beloved leader.
And on a less serious note, Jeffrey?? WTF??? I caught the last two eps of Project Runway on the plane, and thought Uli got robbed. I mean, Laura’s clothes were nice and wearable, but she was a bit of a sore loser, so she didn’t deserve to win, but Uli actually made clothes that women would wear. I mean, do you ever see women dressed in Betsey Johnson’s clothes? Jefferey is bad Betsey Johnson meets bad 80’s SoCal punk (which was already over when it started). I’ve never seen such irrelevant clothing. Whatever!