Getting to the point

Pimpelliese, unblocked

When I won that blue ribbon for the shawl I submitted to the Michigan State Fair two years ago, I chatted up one of the judges about all of the entries. She told me she was surprised by all of the beautiful afghans, shawls, sweaters and other items that had been entered, but weren't blocked. All that stood between many of those items and a blue ribbon was a bath, and some pins, wires or string, she said.

How can knitting cause worry? When you aren't certain there will be enough of the only skein of this yarn to finish. I made it with a mere 5 yards to spare--not enough for another pattern repeat. The scale helped me finish this with a little fudging on the stitch count to get there.

Why would somebody knit an item, spend countless hours, hard earned dollars and who knows how much worry and not finish the thing?

Blobby, unblocked lace.

Take for instance, Pimpelliese, which is done. Oh it's pretty enough to wear right off the needles, but the lace isn't open. While the garter stitch portion looks nice, the lace is rather shabby looking. Unlike my Ruby shawl, this one doesn't take a slide rule to block. It just needs an all over bath and some gentle pinning. The reward for this little step is a more professional appearance to the finished product.

To see those yarn overs, one MUST block. Otherwise, why bother with fancy pants patterns?

For my Victorian shawl, I used nothing more high tech then pins and my mattress. The bed was the only flat surface big enough to spread out an article more than six feet in diameter and then some for the points.

My new favorite thing to knit with a hank of sock yarn.

While I wouldn't bother to block socks or other small projects, I would never skip this step on other items and especially lace and cables. Do you?