Thursday, February 12, 2009

Texas Teeth

Concerned about the width of this piece, and wondering if I should have added another 5 stitches, I looked into the lace knitter's crystal ball.  Utilizing the lazy knitter's method (pins, a wet cloth and a screaming hot iron), I blocked the bottom of this wrap and got a fairly relaxed width of 16.5 inches, which is close enough to the pattern's 17 inch width to convince me to keep working for now.

Here is my 39 stitch cast on looking too much like a scarf-not a wrap.

Here is the same piece after a down and dirty blocking job while still on the needles.  This is what I mean about having faith when it comes to lace, and knowing that blocking will open the spaces.  This piece is a staggered lace pattern that's turning out quite nicely.  I love the rich and earthy colors, and the Mountain Colors Alpaca Blend is a dream to knit with.


This blocked section sort of reminds me of the orthodontist my daughter saw when she was a teen.  She had a Lauren Hutton-like tiny gap in her otherwise perfectly straight teeth.  To close the deal and convince her she needed $7,000 worth of work, he told her, "you have what we like to call Texas teeth-lot's of wide open spaces."  At that very moment, she stopped listening to me tell her she already had a nice smile, and I bought her a mouth full of metal.  The orthodontist in the mean time, lives in a lovely Grosse Pointe mansion.  Damn, that would have bought a lot of yarn.

7 comments:

sandy said...

Oh, that would have bought a heck of a lot of yarn. I love the colors in this. So pretty.

My son's girlfriend is crocheting her first afghan (she lives here) so she is going to teach me as she goes along...I'm kind of excited. I might go out and buy some supplies after my family (a lot of them coming in this weekend) leave on Monday.

I'm going to have all four grandkids here plus my grand niece. All of them under the age of 6. whew!! They are all spending the weekend.

Jane said...

Blocking has transformed it, the colour is fantastic

debra said...

Wow, it's beautiful! I love the colors and the open feel.
We own a piece of the orthodontist's decor as well. Both daughters. Big bucks.

Brenda said...

You did good! It looks great and I am sure it will just keep getting better. We ended up spending even more than that for our son's teeth. No cosmetic reason...he had too many teeth and they needed arranging Have a great day!

Unknown said...

Greek to me, but lovely. Sun's out here, probably lighting the way for the next round of tornados to fly through. Enjoy your day, girlie:>)

Rositta said...

Lovely piece of lace. Amazing what blocking can do. I too own a part of an orthodontis's house but my outcome wasn't very good. Too old and too many bone loss issues but of course I was never warned, he just wanted my money...ciao

Betty F said...

I love the colors and for whatever reason.. I'm laughing so hard at your story about your daughter's teeth, I have tears rolling down my face! Sorry to laugh.. Maybe it was the way you said it!