Block Party

It has been emphatically stated here that I loathe blocking my finished knits.  That remains true, with the only change being what-is-a-stronger-word-than-"loathe"?

The scarf that Kelli asked me --- lo, these many weeks ago --- to sample knit for her is finally done.

The body is this lovely lace, with a thin garter stitch border.  On each end

is a simple, but elegant, old shale border.

Only, I had MANY PROBLEMS with the simple old shale border.  

The scarf is about 4 feet long, and, the first time I made it, I got all the way to the ending old shale, only to find I had made a counting, and, therefore, a stitch, mistake.  I tried to unravel back to the error, but just made a hellacious mess of it all.  (One reason I rarely knit lace.)  It kept ripping back into the body of the scarf, and I finally decided to just frog the entire thing and start again.

Except I could not --- could NOT --- make that first border.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that it took me a week of casting on and ripping out before I finally got past about Row 6, and made it to the body.  I have never felt so defeated and fed up.  If I were making it for myself, I would have kept it unravelled and moved on to the next project.  But, since I was working for someone else, I kept at it.  And, over the weekend, I got it done.  There will never be enough "thanks" to Kelli for giving me this opportunity, and being so patient with me.

I didn't block it full-on, as it's going to be sent through the mail, and subjected to who knows how much squishing.  I did, though, give it a good steam.  While I was at it, I also tackled the Vikings shawl, which was made as part of a knitalong way back I don't know when.

The truest color is in the close-ups, and you can also see that, despite my efforts, the bottom of the shawl still curves inward.  Again, since it's for me, I normally would just let that go.  But the bottom section is in that beautiful "waves/sails" pattern, and needs to be seen.

I've said over and over that I'm a process knitter, not a product one, which might explain why blocking gripes me.  I'm done with the process of knitting;  I don't want any more to do.  Then again, blocking can be seen as part of the process, meaning maybe I should have more patience with it.  Embrace it.