The Great Blocking of the Lace

It was a dark and stormy night... well actually it was just a bit o' over cast and fantastic weather, but that is *totally* a better opening line for the magnitude of the project i am about to describe.

So i've been holding onto this lace i finished knitting for months now.  I have been dreading trying to "block" the lace.  I at one point even came up with the crazy idea that maybe i didn't need to block the lace.  Luckily i promptly came to my senses and shoved the lace back into a dark deep corner of the "things that need attention" drawer.

By luck i found myself in the near vicinity of a hardware store with a few minutes to kill on Sunday afternoon.  I decided it was time to face my fears and try my luck at this whole lace blocking thing.  I purchased a couple of skinny metal rods that didn't look like they would rust immediately and were relatively long, 4' a piece, as i had about 10 ' total to block. 
Lace was soaked in luke warm water for 30 minutes and then lovingly slid onto the blocking rods.  Once everything was on the rods each was laid down on the rug in the living room and the pinning began.  i didn't know i even owned so many pins, wow!  It was relatively easy process, but took a lot longer then i thought it would (30 minutes just to slide everything onto the rods and 40 minutes to pin everything in place).

Blocking Hand Knit Lace | Pinning    Blocking Hand Knit Lace | Threading the Rods    Blocking Hand Knit Lace | Pinned out on the Floor

This morning it was like Christmas!  Everything was dry and beautiful!!!  I also lucked out and found some time this morning to sew the lace onto the polonaise.  Pretty!!!

Blocked Lace | Finished!!!    Blocked Lace and Swirl Trim along Edges of Polonaise

Now i need to make some cuffs to balance out all of the other trimmings that are starting to pile up on the polonaise.  I'm thinking to stick with the Harebell Lace pattern and add the upper design as found in Victorian Lace Today.  Two layers of cuffs for each sleeve should not take too long...and now that i have conquered my fear of blocking they shouldn't even have to sit around forever once they're done ; )


1 comment:

Brooke said...

The lace edging looks awesome! I bet that you're glad you sucked it up and did it.