Finished Object: The “Shaped Triangle” Shawl

Here is the completed shawl from my August 9th post.

I modified this shawl; I liked the way it looked in the book A Gathering of Lace , but decided I wanted a smaller shawl and binded off a lot sooner than the pattern called for. Between the time when I was knitting it and I blocked it, I wasn’t in love with it. It was soft, and I liked the colors. I also like the way that it was constructed, but lace usually doesn’t look its best before it is washed. When it is washed and blocked, it almost magically turns into something beautiful.

Blocking is used to stretch out a knitted item to a certain size or get the lace to open up completely. Many people use wires and pins, but I did it the lazy knitters way. I hand washed it in the bathtub, and then hung it over the shower curtain to dry. The tips dried more slowly, so they were heavier and weighed down the rest of the shawl, which I am going to call gravity blocking from now on. I just made sure that the center stayed on the shower curtain and the ends were even. I think it came out very good and I like that it didn’t take me hours to pin everything and stretch it. I’m guessing my gravity blocking wouldn’t work as well on something really fancy.