Finally Got Her Blocked

I finally received my blocking wires in the mail and found the courage (and the time) to get down in the floor and block my Hidcote Shawl. Wow, she is a beauty! This is such a great pattern! I was especially pleased with the texture of the top section of lace--the light just danced off the shawl.

This was my first experience with blocking wires and there is a knack to working with them, like picking up enough strands of the yarn so that you can stretch the points out without fear. I managed to grab only one strand on a point and my cashmere yarn snapped. Yikes! But all was not lost and I successfully made the repair the following day once the shawl was dry.

I was surprised to find that after washing, fluffing the cashmere in the dryer, and blocking the final size of my shawl was the same as the pattern-44x90" I used needles that were one size larger than recommended and my unwashed/unblocked size was quite a bit larger so getting the exact final size was unexpected. I guess that's why cashmere needs to be fluffed up :-)

As usual, there are more pictures and ramblings on on my blog www.beadntat.blogspot.com
It's been great fun knitting along with ya'll!