just another raveller

I just love blocking lace! And whatever others may say, I do enjoy knitting lace with this yarn. While it has shrunk back a bit, I think it is no more than I would expect. I used a 3.5 mm (3 US) needle. Before blocking, the piece measured about 16x16 inches. Here it is in a field of Veronica... Pinned out, it measured about 29x29 inches. I left it to try overnight, unpinned it in the morning and it immediately shrunk 1 inch to 28x28. I left it undisturbed for another 8 hours. It shrunk back one more inch in that time, to 27x27. When I returned from work, I could resist no longer and took it for another whirl in the garden. I just measured again and it is now 26x26 inches. The bumps that you can see in the first picture show no signs of re-appearing. For now, I have a 60% increase in size from the unblocked state. Quite respectable, but I will check again in the morning. Now, I'll get back to the pink blanket. PS. No one has guessed the answer to yesterday's question correctly ...

Really. I was standing at the stove yesterday evening, making chili. I had sauteed the onions and garlic and the meat was browning. I was in the process of opening up the cans of tomatoes and kidney beans, when my husband came in and reported that there were 3 police cars at the neighbour's. Seeing that I was at a delicate point in the culinary process, I continued working while hubby went out to join the growing crowd of neighbours on the pavement. Various scenarios played out in my head as I drained tomato sauce into the pot. Had E. returned home from caring for her aged parents in Philly to find her house burgled? Worse, had she discovered her husband collapsed in a heap? I scraped the last of the beans out of their cans, put the whole concoction on extra low heat and went to join the little crowd. At that point E. herself was outside holding court. She had arrived home and before long had become convinced that there was someone walking back and forth on her second floor, steppi...