With Ginkgo, Blocking Isn't as Easy as You "Thinkgo"

I remember when I blocked my Fall Colored Ginkgo Leaves last year, I ended up having to run out to my local craft store to pick up another package of rust proof pins to finish the intricate blocking required on this shawlette. So, at least this time, I have a sufficient number of pins on hand. I used two blocking wires along the top of the shawlette and one blocking wire down the center spine.

Using a printed copy of a photo out of the pattern, I pinned out the point of the shawlette.  Then slowly worked up each side of the shawl until I had each leaf blocked. When I was done, I only had 3 pins left!

The shawlette blocked out to a measurement of 45 inches wide by 22 inches high.

The hat, surprisingly, was more difficult to block. Since this is a slouch beret, I couldn't just throw it on my head form as I have for the last few hats. The ribbing on the hat was pretty loose after it was soaked and I needed to stretch out the body of the hat so the lace could be seen without stretching the ribbing.

I stuffed the body of the had with plastic grocery bags an then used the eyelets formed by the increases just over the ribbing through which to run a piece of yarn.

I pulled the yarn snug and tied a bow knot. This helps stretch the body of the hat and eliminates the stretch in the ribbing .

I then place it with a wine bottle going up into the stuffing to support the hat without smashing the ribbing. The ribbing may take a little longer to dry this way, but I am not in any hurry.

I used a fun little online picture editing website, PicMonkey. A lot of the features are free and it is kind of fun to use, however, as you can see, the pictures are not very clear. If you would like to see better pictures of this project as well as notes on how I worked the pattern please go here for the hat and here for the shawl.

Happy Knitting!

Productive Knitting Week: Part 2 - How Now Brown Cowl

It's amazing what difference is made in blocking a knitted item. Above are the before and after (OK, during) the blocking of my cowl that I knit to fill my commute time. 

How Now Brown Cowl was an extremely fast knit. I completed it in about 6 hours of knitting stretched over two days. I guess that is one reason I like using bulky weight yarns. When I got this item off the needles, I tried it on and was a bit dismayed to see that the tip of the cowl rolled under. I assume that this is because my gauge on garter stitch is tighter than my stocking stitch. 

Again, I used blocking wires to block the cowl after soaking it for about 30 minutes. I have two on the front side with one of them at an angle to pull the lower point out and away. The yarn is not in the least bit over stretched, so my hope is that this will stop it from rolling under.

Happy Knitting!

Girly Girl Finished, Now on to Next Surprise

My Girly Girl Tunic is upstairs on my spare bed blocked and drying. I used my lace blocking wires (Blockit) to block it out. It worked really well and I was able to use a minimum of pins and had it blocked in less than 5 minutes. Nice! I wasn't sure how I was going to block something that is knitted in the round, but the blocking wires worked well. That was an investment well spent.

Now that Girly Girl is essentially finished, I cast on another Baby Surprise Jacket only this time, I want to make one that will fit a baby between 12 and 18 months, so I am going to use Elizabeth Zimmerman's [K] method to get the size. I knit a swatch on US size 9 needles with Hobby Lobby's Bamboo Spun which is a boucle-like yarn made with 77% Bamboo and 23% Polyamide. My gauge came out with 4.5 stitches to the inch. I used the size chart from the Craft Yarn Council to determine the measurements I needed.

I cast on the number of stitches I calculated and am working on the first few rows right now. I will post again  when I have enough to photograph.

Happy Knitting!

Alexandra Gold -- Finishing Steps

I like to use a large mixing bowl to soak my finished knitted item. Somewhere, I read that you are supposed to soak your wool for at least thirty minutes in (not too) warm water so that the water saturates the wool. The reason is that the lanolin in the wool is a natural water repellent and it takes time for the water to work into the fibers.



I add just a little lavender scented body wash. Not because it needs it, but because I really like the smell of it on the dry wool. You should just push the wool under the water and not agitate it at all. Agitation and warm water is what makes yarn felt. Felted lace shawls are not really pretty

 I then put the next smaller bowl on top of the wool and fill it part way with water. This holds all of the yarn under water so that it soaks evenly.

 After 30 minutes, I took the smaller bowl off of the yarn. Look at all of that yellow dye that has come out of the wool into the water!

 Carefully rinse the wool in cool clear water until there is no more dye coming out. Again, be careful not to agitate it too much even in cool water. I pull the wool to the side of the bowl and let the water run into the bowl -- not over the yarn directly.

After pouring out all the water, I gently press down on the wool to squeeze out more water. DON'T EVER TWIST WET WOOL!!!! The wool fiber is weakest when wet and you might have a forever stretched out item.

 After gently squeezing out the wool in the bowl, I put it on a towel. Make sure if you use a dark towel that it is older and does not give off dye or lint onto your newly made item.

 Roll up the towel with the item in it.

Then roll the towel up the other way so that you have fashioned a "ball" of sorts.










Put some pressure on the towel ball so that most of the remaining water is squeezed into the towel. You want your item damp not sopping!


I blocked my Alexandra Shawl using my new blocking wires. It was easy to thread the wires into each scallop tip and along the top edge. It only took a few T pins to stretch it out.

The lace shawl took up nearly the entire double bed and could have been stretched larger if I had had a bigger bed! At 74 X 47 this project is huge!! But really beautiful. So happy with Dee O'keefe's Design.