off the needles and onto the floor

actually, it doesn’t quite go like that . . . .
YES, i finished my snow shawl and wove in the last end around 4am this morning. then i cried.

it was mostly out of exhaustion, but also i was already feeling the loss; the minute that hulking piece of knitting was detached from the needles, my arms felt oddly empty (well, after all, i’d been literally carrying it wherever i went for four days straight), and my balance was thrown more than i’d expected (it only weighs about 13 ounces for heavens sake, but still?? ok, it was 4 am, maybe i was just tired).

so i went to bed, hoping i’d get over it by the time i woke up. and i had.

because soon after i woke up, the mail carrier arrived and guess what she had for me today??

vanessa’s shawl, to be blocked.
this was SO great; all weekend long i had dreamed of the two of them blocking side by side.
how exciting! i hummed merrily while i made some coffee and while drinking my first cup out in the yard i had a realization. well, more like a DUH-uh moment.

heh. i can’t block them side by side; i only have one set of blocking wires.
oh well, maybe another time.

instead of fretting over it, i put vanessa’s shawl in to soak.

i’m blocking hers first because hers is the real representation of the pattern, and i need to glean some information from it, like final dimensions, etc.

a word about size. my own sample shawl has 20 more rows than everyone else’s will have. 20 rows is not a lot . . maybe it amounts to 2 inches in length. but when you double that across the shawl, it makes it a LOT more huge (you’ll see when i block mine tomorrow). i mean, my shawl looks like a (lovely) gross swamp creature and hers looks, well, normal. interesting what a few inches can do.

anyhow, after an hour or so i took the shawl out of the water

(just a tinge of color there, not bad at all)
and set to work getting it on the wires.

the square shawl is actually pretty easy to block, despite its size. just thread the wires through the edging on all sides and then pin them parallel.

ok, i won;t tease you any more with talk; let’s see some photos (you’ll have to excuse the dark-ish cast on everything; it’s appallingly gray here today. and yesterday. and probably tomorrow. oops, i digress).

here’s the tree border; a forest of delights, with twinkling snowflakes scattered over and through it. and let’s not ignore the large, snowflake center

it’s kinda like a revolving snowflake kaleidescope.
here’s a shot of the entire progression of motifs from the center out

i just adore the play of shadow and light on the motifs—it has so much more dimension and depth than i expected from such a fine yarn.

this is one of the advantages of working with pastels and whites; these contrasts in light and dark are not so obvious in a more strongly colored yarn. also, knitting to gauge (not too loose) helps maintain that effect once it’s blocked.

and then there is the scrumptious edging

this picture is especially for vanessa, who i know was a little concerned that the edging might lose its 3-D quality in the soaking. but not so vanessa, yay.

see? it’s as plump and shadowy as before it was blocked.

ok now, i know you’re holding your breath waiting for the long shot. but first, let me explain that a true long shot with the whole shawl in it showed no detail really

(i had to get too far away and the day is gray).
so i’m giving you the quasi long shot.

and here, you can see the triangle long shot

the shawl did end up large, but not ridiculously large (THIS is large, i think; mine isn’t that big . . .)
vanessa’s measures about 74 inches across the diagonal and about 56 inches along each side of the square. so there you have it.

and now—on to something new for me i think (hell, i deserve it).