Friday 7 January 2011

Completing knitting

I've had a lacy project on the needles since May 2010, and for a number of reasons which some knitters would sympathise with, just wasn't getting finished.

I was thinking of what New Year's resolutions I would consider in November....well this year I was determined that I would be well prepared for Christmas and the New Year.

In the end I decided to consider resolutions much more often, so in November, I decided that I would tackle the scarf....I started again on 24 December, and finished it yesterday. I gained courage and determination to complete after gaining inspiration from Ravelry. For any knitters who have not yet discovered Ravelry.....go there, please, your life will be changed!


In Kenilworth we have a lovely Knitting Group, and this week, I took my scarf and finished the edges....and here it is, curved around a lovely lot of beautiful hyacinth bulbs, which Mandy gave me for my birthday.

There is a final process which changes the bumpy scarf into a flat one where the pattern is shown off to best effect. It takes starting by a soak of around 30 minutes to relax the fibres, then about 45 minutes to position dozens of pins to stretch off the piece. Sometimes I rather like the textured effect, and maybe when a lace item is washed a second or third time, I dry the item flat without stretching. In Victorian and Edwardian times, people used to send off their lace and knitted shawls to women who wash and reblock items for a living. In one of the recent episodes of an Edwardian Farm, a piece of lace was being washed. The post was extremely reliable and an item could be back with the owner in less than a week!

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