A Little Bit Of Blocking

I don't know what is wrong with me. I ought to be writing a post most days, there is certainly lots to write about, but I just don't seem to have the time. My excuse is going to be that I have been knitting like mad over the last few weeks in an effort to make all the things that I want to give as Christmas presents. I've even managed to find time to knit a few commissions, a hat and mittens for one of my knitting group friends who is too busy to knit herself because she has started to make beautiful knitting project bags and is inundated with orders, and a lace scarf for her daughter to give to her Mum (she couldn't knit herself because Mum would have seen it and know it was for her).

It is this scarf that caused me to dream up the title for this post. The blocking concerned is not writer's block, but the blocking that is required to get a piece of knitting to its proper size and shape. You should really block all knitting before you start joining seams and doing the finishing touches, but I have never done that, because I know that I knit to tension and I am sure that the various pieces of any garment that I make will fit together easily.

But when it comes to lace knitting then blocking is essential. This is generally because you knit lace on much larger needles than would be expected for the thickness of the yarn. The resultant knitting usually curls around itself and has no real shape whatsoever. In order to block something you have to first soak it for some time so that every fibre of the yarn gets wetted, then you drain the water out of the bowl and squeeze out the excess water from the item to be blocked, first by squeezing it with your hands making sure that it is a squeezing action and not a wringing one, and then wrapping it in an absorbent towel to get rid of as much water as possible.

The scarf that I had to block this morning was knitted in a lovely yarn made from kid mohair and silk. The yarn is a delight to knit with but as anyone who is familiar with mohair will know the yarn has lots of fibres protruding from the yarn; it's these that give mohair its tremendous warmth capability. I put the scarf into the bowl of tepid water and it just floated on the top of it. The water just wasn't getting into the fabric at all. It took a good five minutes of prodding and poking to make sure that every stitch of the scarf had absorbed the water. Half an hour later with the scarf damp and creased from the squeezing action it was time to get the blocking wires and pins out and lay the scarf out on a couple of towels, pull it to shape, then insert the wires and add a few pins to make sure that it was kept stretched to shape while it dried.

Eight hours later I took the pins and wires out and lifted the scarf from the towels. I held up a beautiful scarf with its lace pattern clearly visible and the points at each end of the scarf firmly shaped. It will be going to knitting group with me tomorrow so that I can hand it over to the person who commissioned me to make it.

I have another scarf on the floor now. This one is a far more elaborate lace design and is made from a yarn that is a mix of baby alpaca, cashmere and silk. This one absorbed the water far more readily but I was surprised to find that the water had changed colour when I came to drain it away. Then I remembered that the yarn is from a company that uses natural dyes and so a certain amount of colour should be expected to come out of the yarn when it is first wetted.

This scarf was a little easier to apply the wires to because of the eyelets that are a few stitches in from the edge on all four sides. I'm hoping that it will be dry in the morning and I can block another scarf before I head off for knitting group. I have five scarves and I shawl to block in total and the shawl will require me to move all the furniture around in my room so as to ensure that I have a large enough area on which to lay it out.

I think that in future I will block each item as soon as it is completed so as to not have this blocking frenzy that I am going to have to endure over the next week. But at least it is keeping me busy and I don't have time to think about how difficult the next few weeks are going to be for me.

Getting Ready For Winter

Autumn is definitely here now. The leaves are changing colour and falling from the trees, its getting colder at night, and the days are noticeably shorter with it being dark much later in the morning and earlier in the evening.

It's my favourite time of year, but it means that winter is on its way, and I'm not so fond of winter. I haven't been feeling very well over the last month or so, but I have still been knitting. At the moment that knitting is in preparation for the winter.

I've finished ascarf and I have knitted half of a pair of

mittens.

I'm knitting a jumper in the same colourway, but in a thicker wool, and while I won't have enough of the wool used for the scarf and mittens to be able to knit a hat, I am hoping that there will be enough of the thicker wool to be able to complete the set.

... Cockle Shells All In A Row

Yesterday I took a break from knitting one or other of the scarves that I have on the go in order to do a test sample of the 'cockle shell' pattern using a slightly heavier weight of yarn and to determine what size of needles I would need to use for it. The test turned out to be very successful and I am now going to use the pattern to make a scarf in this other wool at some point in the future.

One of the benefits of using the yarn that I did for the sample was that it made it much easier to see the cockle shells, so I have included a photograph for you to see what is not quite so apparent in the scarf that I am knitting in the very pale wool.

Christmas Present Update

Scarf No 2 was started yesterday and is progressing nicely. It's about 7 inches long at the moment and will be in excess of 60 inches when completed. The scarf has a very simple 2-row pattern so it grows quite quickly (it is also rather boring at times) so it is great for working on when I am watching a DVD.This afternoon I decided to start Scarf No 3. This is a totally different kettle of fish because the pattern is so complex it requires watching at every move; however, this means that it is great to work on when listening to music. Since this photograph was taken I have completed another pattern repeat so it is now about 4 inches in length. This scarf is somewhat different to the others in that it is knitted in two halves and they are then grafted together when the halves are completed. This means that when it is blocked, points can be formed from the 'cockle shell' motifs at both ends of the scarf.

First Christmas Present Done!

Earlier this evening I finished knitting the first of the Christmas presents that will need to be sent to Canada. There is still work to be done on it (blocking it to its final dimensions) but the hard work is completed.

The scarf ended up being 66 inches in length so after blocking it should be a few inches longer, probably about 70 inches, and it should be about 8 inches in width. Having tried it out for size when I had finished it, I can say that it will wrap around neck and ears and do a good job of keeping them warm.

Fluff Up My Nose

The lace scarf is progressing well and is now more than 30 inches in length. Because the yarn is hand-dyed there is no regular repetition of the colours throughout the hank of yarn and the scarf is therefore full of little patches of the various colours. This particular yarn is a mixture of greens, yellow, pink, peach and a touch of lilac, which is creating a lovely effect. I know that if I were to knit another scarf using the same colourway and the same pattern the two scarves would look totally different because of the hand-dying techniques and I think that it is this that makes me love these hand-dyed yarns so much.

There are, however, drawbacks to the yarn that I am using at the moment. It is a joy to knit with because it is so soft, but being made from alpaca it does have lots of very fine loose hairs that float around in the air and land on my clothes and the furniture while I am knitting. But worse than this, are the hairs that keep finding their way up my nose, causing occasional tickles and sometimes bouts of sneezing.

But none of these drawbacks have stopped me from ordering some more in a variety of colourways to make some more of my Christmas presents.

Something Lacy

After finishing the socks I was going to knit another pair (I have yarn for at least 5 more pairs in my stash), this time using a different pattern, but I decided that I needed to get to work on some of the Christmas presents that I am making for my 'other family' in Canada. I have decided that the ladies might each like a hand-knitted lace scarf and as these take a bit longer than a pair of socks to knit I knew that I ought to get started. I have yarn for four scarves already put by so all I needed to do was find some patterns. I had a number of patterns in mind but it was very difficult to choose which one to make; however the decision was made and I started knitting but, as is always the way when I am using very fine yarn, each time I got started I ended up dropping stitches and because the scarf was only a few rows in length, the stitch would drop all the way down and I would have to unpick the work and start again. I began to think that this was going to be as difficult as the Shetland lace shawl that I made at the beginning of the year, but I decided to try a different pattern and this time I had a little more success.

I have two hanks of each of the two colourways in the above photograph, which will be enough for four nice long lacy scarves. The yarn is a very fine and soft alpaca so I have had to stop wearing dark coloured tops while I am knitting with it because it looks as though I have been sitting with a cat on my chest after an evening's work. But having found a suitable pattern, the first scarf is growing quite nicely now and measures approximately 10 inches at the moment and at a guess the finished scarf will be something over 60 inches in length.It is very difficult to determine the lace pattern at the moment because the knitting is so springy, but once the scarf is finished and has been blocked (this means soaking it in cool water so that all the fibres are wet and then squeezing out as much water as possible before stretching the scarf to its finished dimensions and then leaving it to dry) the pattern should be somewhat clearer. It is supposed to look like a series of tumbling leaves and hopefully blocking the scarf will make the pattern show up, but even if it isn't as clear as it might be in a slightly thicker laceweight yarn, it will be very warm and soft around the neck. Something that will be nice to have for the cold Canadian winters.

A Quick Update On The Knitting (And Crochet)

I have been crocheting another scarf like the one that I showed you all the other day. This time the wool comprises a real rainbow of colours rather than just being the blue/green/purple combination of the previous example. The photograph below shows it in its early stages and it is now almost complete, but I needed a change from crocheting which can be a bit hard on my wrist, so it has been put away for a few days and I am back to knitting.
I have written before about how I like to have several projects on the go at the same time so that I don't get bored with what I am working on. Last week I bought a book entitled Victorian Lace Today, which includes a number of patterns from Victorian times which have been updated or comprise elements from several different pattern designers from those times. The scarf below is being knitted using a pattern from 1847 and it is progressing slowly but steadily as I try to complete one complete of the pattern each day, although I have to admit that I haven't done any of it for a couple of days because I have been working on something else.
I have been taking a break from the scarf to work on the shawl shown below. Instead of using very fine laceweight wool, this shawl is a little more substantial and is made using some sock yarn that I bought for another project, but once I started knitting it I didn't like the finished article so I unpicked it and the wool was available for something else. That something else has turned out to be a half-hexagon shawl which is progressing well. I have finished the first two pattern charts and I am now on the second repeat (of five) of the third pattern chart for this shawl. While the top of the shawl is quite substantial having very little in the way of lace patterning in it (this should mean that it will sit on the shoulders well and be warmer than something that is completely lacy), the second and third pattern charts are much more lacy in appearance and as the size of needle used increases as the shawl progresses the lower parts will be more flowing. With 45 more rows to be knitted and then a complex cast off which involves the use of a crochet hook as well as the knitting needle, the shawl won't be finished tomorrow but the weekend should see its completion.
I am then going to start knitting some socks, something that I haven't done for a number of years, but there are so many lovely sock yarns available these days and an incredible number of sock patterns, I am rather looking forward to working on them in the coming weeks. All I have to do now is make sure that I have the needles in the sizes that I require and then I can start to use some of my stash of sock wool that has been building up over the last few weeks. One thing is for certain, I am going to have nice warm feet this winter.