New Lace

I bought the lovely hand dyed merino  and silk blend from the Malabrigo company to make a pair of socks actually, and then discovered the colours were not coming up in stripes or even blending, but rather looking like camouflage in two shades of blue - I'm sure I detected the map of Italy as I was working my way down the leg from the cuff.  It was not good!
So...out the stitches came, the yarn was rolled  up  and tossed unceremoniously back into the basket.

And then I was roaming around the incredible Ravelry site one day and happened upon a lovely crochet shawl  - The Elise Shawl it was called. If you're interested you can find it as a free pattern on Ravelry.    Hmmm I thought to myself - what about using that lovely yarn for this lovely crochet shawl.

Here it is,  finished and waiting to have ends tailed in...no sign of any maps of Italy...no sign of Camouflage, but my oh my does it need blocking.  No surprise there.  Lace, whether it is knit or crochet, usually needs to be blocked to show off its beauty.

First step - into the sink.

I added a small squirt of Ivory dish soap to the tepid water in the sink, but Eucolan wool wash works beautifully too - I just didn't happen to have any, and I was impatient to get started.
I gently laid the shawl on top of the water and let it absorb and sink down.  No swishing or swooshing is necessary - maybe just a gentle squeeze to make sure the piece is wet through.
Once that happened I got out my handy dandy colander from the kitchen cupboard and scooped the shawl into it.

I drained the water out of the sink, left the colander in the sink, and gently pressed water out.
Then, I transferred the whole thing to a waiting towel on the floor - you make due when you don't have a  lot of space

It doesn't look like much of anything here does it - a soaking wet blob - which I rolled in the towel, pressing out moisture as I rolled the towel up.

Next came the fun part- the actually pinning and blocking.  I have to do this kind of thing on the floor..I placed a couple of towels down first, and then covered them with a clean sheet to work on  and got out the pins.

It is really important not to hurry the process here.  I laid out the shawl, gently straightening it and patting it with my hands until the top was more or less straight.  Then I started pinning out the picots one at a time, sticking the long pins down through the padding so they would stay - one side and up the other

.Once I had it more or less the way I wanted it to look it was a case of making tiny adjustments to the top and picots ...and then...standing up, closing up the pin box and walking away.
It is important to let lace ...or any piece of  handwork you make -  dry thoroughly before unpinning it.  Step away, make some tea, go for a walk - ignore it.  It won't be ready to unpin for a few hours.  In this case, I actually left it over the weekend.
It was worth the wait.