Stretch, Shape and Sculpt

With a title like that, you may think this article is going to be about exercise rather than knitting and fiber arts, but you would be wrong. Instead the flexibility of our bodies, let's look at blocking and the flexibility of wool, especially as it pertains to hand knit lace.

I decided to re-block my Chasing Butterflies Shawl after seeing one of my friends wearing her shawl recently. We initially took very different approaches to blocking our finished pieces. I did a relatively gentle shaping with lots of T-pins to open up the points along the edging. She was much more aggressive with the blocking and used blocking wires to really open things up.

There's nothing wrong with gently blocking a lace piece. I've been comfortably wearing my shawl this spring and summer and it looks just fine. Then, when I saw my friend wearing her shawl I noticed how points were still sharp while mine were beginning to droop. Also, her shawl seemed effortlessly styled because of the curve of the neckline edge. So I revisited the blocking process.

This metamorphosis inspired me to revisit another wool piece, a small wet-felted bowl that did not travel well when we made our cross-country move. I wish I had taken a "before" picture. Let's just say my piece was much more pancake-shaped than bowl-shaped. Behold, the power of wool!