Queen During Blocking ...

Another quick peek at the Queen as 'the blocking magic' does it's thing.

Ilga's instructions say to block hard but it is surprisingly hard to block this slightly more than a semi circle shape, even with blocking wires.

I used my new foam mats from Early Learning Centre and they are really good - such a chore getting the pins into our carpet, so much easier with foam. But I need to work on how to lay them out to make the biggest area for blocking. No point buying more mats, we haven't any more carpet to lay them on! Could always move house. "Darling, we need to move to a bigger house! I don't have enough room to block my lace here." Nah! Maybe not.

Blocking opened up the first repeat of the stripe section and revealed more detail in the shell stitch which I made too small by doing too few yarn overs *rolls eyes*. It's not so noticeably smaller now than the other sections, except that I have now drawn your attention to it :o)

Here's a reminder of how the finished piece should look. And I think it's not a bad match ;o) It took 10 days from winding the yarn to finishing last night, [but it was 1.30am :o) - yawn] I'm not sure, but I'd say 7 evenings of knitting as I didn't cast on straight away; this one is a project to do as a last minute present but still an impressive knit, and, despite the problems with the pattern (I'll post my corrections tomorrow), it was well worth it for the result. I don't think Ilga's corrections are quite right yet so a word of caution if you are using the errata on her web site :o)

Here's a photo to show you the lovely colours of the Schaefer Anne yarn, isn't that pretty?

The yarn also seemed to soften a little on soaking so hopefully, I'll feel a difference when it's dry tomorrow.

The shell stitches are strange to work, very different to any other lace I've done in the past. The looseness of the stitches is disconcerting at first, but this is a super speedy pattern to knit and grows really rapidly, especially as you get towards the end and the shaping for the shoulders/neck area.

Finally, I have, at last, cast on for another Forest Canopy in the lovely dark purples of my aran PY (Cake: Victoria, Gothic, 190g, 440yds) and it is flying on to the needles. This is the first time I've used such a thick yarn for lace but I have had this project in mind for a while now and having finished the Queen my needles were empty, so, what was I supposed to do but start something else. With the test knitting for Kerrie's project club due any day now I wanted something straight forward to work on and the Forest Canopy is just the thing, try this one first if you haven't done lace before!