Let's begin by stating I had recently gotten eye surgery that made me really light-sensitive. It was difficult for me to open my eyes for more than a split second at a time. This was a problem, considering I'd recently made it all the way through my favourite radio show, couldn't watch telly or read, and was thus bored out of my mind.
"I can do the knit stitch without looking!" I thought, "I'm sure I could do a simple pattern, if I printed it so it wasn't on a screen, and just caught glimpses of it in the half-second I can open my eyes!"
Of course, that wasn't a bad idea. Nope, not at all! It was brilliant. Inspired.
Finding the pattern had me in tears -- both from pain and the unexpected, uncontrollable eye-watering that was a side-effect of looking at any type of light. But eventually I found a pattern for some giant yarn that I'd had in my stash for ages (Logic: It's easier to see if it's bigger!) and I cast on.
I made a mistake.
I cast on again.
I made a mistake.
I cast on again.
Repeat about 20 times and you have the riveting and inspiring creative process of my first attempt. I did eventually finish it that day -- it's a very quick knit once one manages to actually start it. The pattern is excellent, by the way! It's free on Ravelry here.
However, my final product didn't look brilliant. It was the yarn, more than the simple lace, that made it look decent. Here's a photograph I took with my just-out-of-surgery eyes.
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| Fantastic, I know. |
If you squint you can see the lace diamonds, and the edging is some kind of lattice. It's fine, but the sparkly yarns are what gives it an edge when wrapped around one's shoulders. Something about the lace wasn't working.
I was undaunted. I was going to make an absolutely incredible second shawl, and it was going to be amazing, and now that I had discovered that I could knit while semi-impaired, I was going to do so. Once again picking up my giant knitting needles and some stash yarn, I went at it again.
Please go back to the bit where I cast on. Repeat the previous scenario. Look, I am never going to give anyone advice to do this after they just had their eyes operated on, it's a bad idea. I dropped a stitch almost at the end, gave up, and had to re-knit the whole thing the next day.
And then I had done it.
I feel that I should explain my enthusiasm at the end; I was thrilled with myself, I had conquered knitting -- albeit with many bad attempts to begin -- and now was working on a second shawl, and I was incredible, I was a superhero --
Then I cast off, and I was a complete and utter failure.
Look at the piece above. Do you see that yarn? For those unfamiliar with gauge, or yarn types, it is probably nothing special, but let me assure you that is a very bulky yarn, quite thick, made up of a netting, or mesh. It was a thrift store purchase, and I was lucky to find two colours that went well together. Thanks to the thickness of the yarn, it somewhat holds its shape -- not great, but not horrible either.
Cut to the current yarn - another charity shop purchase, a soft orange acrylic yarn that wasn't as thick as the previous one. It didn't hold shape at all. Rather than a soft lace-and-mesh, what I got was a sad, curled-in-on-itself lump. It didn't look like anything.
I blinked at it (granted, I couldn't do much other than blink in those days) and immediately reached for my computer, despite the pain shooting through my eyeballs. Dear Google and Ravelry, what have I done?!
Answer: I hadn't blocked. Lace requires blocking.
What is blocking, you ask? Well, it's a process by which you set the yarn into its shape. With wools and cotton, often this just means getting it wet, pinning it out into shape, and then letting it dry. With acrylic, it's a little different.
Acrylic yarns aren't natural fibres so wet-dry blocking won't set them. Heat can set them, but heat can also melt acrylic yarn. The best advice I was able to find was to use a steamer to block acrylic. Here's the general concept:
Acrylic yarns are made of tiny bits of acrylic fibre. One doesn't want to melt those fibres together, or you just get a lump of plastic and not a lovely soft yarn at all. What you want to do is carefully heat it just enough for those fibres to stick to each other in shape, just barely, without losing their softness and texture. Steam is hot, but it doesn't have the pressure of a basic iron, and the puffing air helps keep the yarn light.
My biggest piece of advice: test a bit of yarn first. I tried different ways to hold the steamer: super close and super hot, super close and cooler, far away and super hot, far away and cooler. I found that my less-hot setting with the steamer close to the yarn gave me a nice texture.
Then came the pinning process. Anyone who blocks will tell you this is the least-fun part of blocking. Taking your finished piece off the blocking mats/towels is so satisfying, but pinning it out is tedious. Here's my shawl pinned into shape, with my first experience of blocking.
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| Not perfect, but you can see the shape of the lace! |
The blocking pins should be holding the fabric open so the lace holes and shapes are visible. At this point, one uses the steamer to coax the yarn into holding that shape for good. The great bit about blocking acrylic is that normally it holds its blocking for life because the fibres are actually fused slightly in that way. Cotton and wool items generally need re-blocked every so often.
Finally, once it had cooled entirely, I took the pins out and tried it on a mannequin.
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| You can see the pattern! |
Finally, I had a shawl! I actually preferred this yarn to the previous one - it looked much neater and more open. I now block all of my acrylic knits this way, lace or no. It gives the stitches definition and helps even any wonky tension!
If you want more instructions on acrylic blocking, G's Crafts 'n Things has a great blog post on the subject, with some excellent pictures of the before-after effects on lace! I'd definitely recommend checking it out.
