Knitting real lace

So tonight I finished my first lace shawl. I call it my first, even though technically I knitted up a couple less involved and shorter lace scarves last year. I was proud when I finished those earlier projects, but when I look back at them now, I can see how simple they really were.

When you have a piece of lace that hasn't been blocked, it literally looks like a rumpled old bag; definitely nothing to be impressed with. The blocking process, however, changes that dramatically. I forgot to get any pictures of the shawl before I blocked it, but here is one of the actual blocking.



To block a piece of lace, you first have to soak the finished piece in cool water with a touch of wool wash (I just use a mild detergent, since I haven't actually gotten around to buying any wool wash). You have to completely soak it, and if the yarn is thicker it takes awhile to get completely soaked through. For this project I used a lace weight yarn (alpaca and silk blend), so I only soaked it for about ten or fifteen minutes.



After the piece is soaked through, you need to squeeze the excess water out of it. You don't want to wring it out, because it can distort or felt the lace, and that would be bad. You squeeze it gently, trying to get out what you can with your hands, and then you roll it into a towel, squeezing out as much as you can that way.

After you get the excess water out, you need to set the shape you want the lace to stay in. They recommend using a blocking board with lines and measurements printed on it so you have a guide as you're laying out your piece to block. I used a piece of foam and measuring tape. You take pins and create whatever shape you want to form with the piece, making sure you get the measurements right and spread out the pattern to show it off best. With scallops like this piece has, it doesn't take that many pins. With straight edges, however - like the scarves I did last year - you can never have enough pins. You don't want to leave any crescents in a line that's supposed to be straight.

After you set the shape the way you want it, you need to wait for the lace to dry completely. With the wool I used last year, that took quite awhile - it was at least twelve hours before I felt safe unpinning it - but with this lace weight piece I only had it set for a couple of hours before unpinning it again.


After this process, the piece of lace will hold its shape until I decide to clean it (or, I suppose, get it very wet). At that point, I'll just take the lace through the blocking process again.

I am completely blown away by the beautiful drape this shawl has; it's way better than I could have hoped for. I think I picked a great yarn, and though there are many mistakes in the piece I knit up, I am very proud to be on this end of that process. I'm looking forward to wearing this shawl this winter!



-Amy