"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

8/14/10

Blocking Some Crochet

This is an interesting blog that I visit regularly:

bagousenfollie

The owner is celebrating her 5th Blogiversary. I have to use Google Translator to read it because I don't speak French, but she sure makes beautiful things with beads.

On Thursday my daughter Ruth and I organized the fair entries for the Knitwits (did I mention I'm in charge of that now?) and wrote up entry tags for all of them. We have 46 entries this year. That's a lot! It took several hours to get them all written up. My hand was really sore from writing so much. There's a lot to fill out on the entry tags. It worked out to 2 boxes of knitting and 4 boxes of crochet. There weren't more items of crochet, just larger because it's mostly afghans, whereas the knitting was a lot of smaller things like mittens, hats, scarves, baby clothes and whatnot.

I haven't been doing much in the way of knitting or beading this past week myself. I got about 12 inches done on the shrug. That's it. I washed the 3 pairs of socks I am entering in the fair and re-blocked them so they'll look extra nice.

I've also been helping my daughters with blocking their projects for the fair. This afternoon daughter Sarah came over to borrow my blocking equipment because she doesn't yet have her own. She crochets. I know most crocheters don't block their finished projects, but they really ought to. Anyway, I took some photos while she worked.

This is a shawl she's made for herself.


She told me she started out making a baby blanket but didn't like how it was turning out, so she decided to make it a shawl instead. She used Cascade 220 Superwash and made the pattern up herself.

Her sister, Ruth, was curious and came to investigate what we were doing.


What I like to call a beauty shot. Her stitching is so even. My crochet has never been this nice.


After she finished the shawl she blocked a baby dress she's made as a gift for a pregnant friend.


This is an old pattern (circa 1980's) from an Annie's Attic booklet called Babies Heirloom Wardrobe. I made a lot of these before I had kids as gifts for friends who had baby girls.


 It's one of the most wonderful patterns they ever published, in my opinion. I'm happy to say, they have just republished it and it can be purchased as a PDF file on the Annie's Attic web site.

The dress needs buttons and some ribbon and it'll be done. It was crocheted with Idena Bambino Ull, which is a fingering weight superwash wool.


If you're wondering how she blocked these, she did it the same way I do in this article I wrote, with blocking wires and a steamer.

Have a nice evening.

5 comments:

  1. It is magnificent what you make! Bravo!
    Thank you very much of your visit and for your participation
    Cross(Spend) very good Sunday
    kisssss from Nice in Francia ;)

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  2. Good luck Sarah! Your work is stunning! Both the shawl and the baby dress are exquisite!

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  3. Hooray! I can just link to your blog instead of calling you and asking for an email. :P

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  4. PS: I was making a baby blanket but it was too wide and the yarn was only making 5 rows per ball and I really didn't want to go buy 7 more balls of Cascade 220 SuperiorWash woollyworld --- though Andrea probably thinks I should have just come back that Tuesday and filled me a sack of wool... :P

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  5. Beautiful work! Especially love the rainbow shawl.

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