Blocking the Backstabber shawl
Tuesday November 06th 2007, 12:42 pm
Filed under: "Wrapped in Comfort",Knit

Blue Moon Geisha in Backstabber, blockingI rinsed this in tepid water and laid it out flat, and I could have left it at that, but I wanted crisper points at the edges to match the name of the colorway. I don’t have any rustproof pins, but I pulled out my blocking wires and used one per three points. This being my second shawl out of Blue Moon’s Geisha yarn, I’d learned that it has a mind and sproing of its own, and I carefully smoothed down the stitches at the increase row between the yoke and the main body, knowing they had the energy of toddlers bouncing around after snacktime. Shhh, children, lay down now, time to relax. And so they did.

To answer Tammy’s question, yes, I knitted this in eight days, mostly during the evenings. Actually, I was thinking it should have been finished in four or five days, max, so your comment made me laugh and put the timing in perspective–thank you for that. I used size nine (5.5 mm) needles, and it worked up very quickly.

One of my goals in using the fingering weight yarns that I mostly used in my “Wrapped in Comfort” book was to make laceknitting accessible to people who don’t have a lot of time, but who still want to make something unusual and beautiful. This Geisha is somewhat in between laceweight and fingering weight.


7 Comments so far
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Will this be the pattern you’ll be sending to Tina/Blue Moon?

I have a skein of Geisha in Scaponia (pinks) I bought at Stitches West and have been at a loss on what to knit it into being more a sock knitter than shawl knitter. So I look forward to when you’re pattern will be available.

Not that it matters greatly, the Geisha specs on Blue Moon’s site calls it sportweight. (Which is probably why I was confused on what to make it into in the first place.)

Comment by Nartian 11.06.07 @ 2:07 pm

The octopus turns into a swan! it looks beautiful. Good idea re the thicker yarns in wrapped in comforat. Sometimes lace knitting seems like to big a project for people because of the fineness of the yarn.

Comment by Vicki 11.06.07 @ 2:49 pm

given my current new addition to the family, I would have to say that kittens are boundlessly full of energy too….

Comment by Carol 11.06.07 @ 8:16 pm

Oooohhh Purrrrty :-}
I’ve been wondering, does superwash wool work for lace? Does it keep its blocked form?

I’ve only really done one lace project (Gryphon Perkin’s Ogee Lace skirt except I used Safari, a linen wrapped kind of cord) pics on ravelry
(I’m Otterwise there)

Comment by Diana Troldahl 11.06.07 @ 11:03 pm

Sure! And yes!

Comment by AlisonH 11.06.07 @ 11:50 pm

Isn’t it amazing how blocking brings the magic into lace making?

Comment by marti 11.07.07 @ 8:44 am

All backstabbers deserve a good blocking!
I love it; it’s just beautiful.

Comment by Toni 11.07.07 @ 9:30 am



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