Sea Anemone - Blocking

Good Morning and Happy Monday!

Here are some lovely shots of the Sea Anemone Shawl as it dries off.

With all knitting, blocking is required. Ever wonder why the label of your wool sweater from the store says to dry it flat? Wool is an elastic fiber, go find a sheep. If you look closely at the fleece on the sheep you will see that the hairs are wavy (depending on the breed this will be more or less wavy). These waves are what make wool stretchy. The cool part is if you get wool wet, stretch it out, and let it dry in its stretched out position; then the wool object will hold that shape. Now sometimes this is desired, and other times its not (I don't want to stretch out my hand knit socks). Lace is a magical thing to block, because  the blocking process opens up the yarn overs and allows the piece to go from a scrunched up clump into a nice piece of recognizable fiber. 

 Here is how the piece looks after I cast off the stitches and before I blocked it. 

The Sea Anemone in its natural habitat (or my bathroom sink).

 Gotta get as much of the water off as possible (wool is delicate when it is wet).

 Then I lay it out on my blocking matts. These are foam boards that I can push pins into. 

Speaking of pins, I carefully stretch out the piece and pin it into place. This is a trial-and-error process. Sometimes I use a ruler/yarnstick, other times I just eyeball it. If there is a long stretch that should be straight I use some thin long wires to get a straight line. 

After its all pinned out, I try to find a place where my cat will leave it alone. With the weather right now it may take a couple days, but this yarn is thin so it might be faster.

Obviously, these aren't the glamour shots. You will just need to stay tuned to see exactly how this turns out.