On Blocking My Bridgewater

If ever there were a bad time to come down with the flu, it would be now. Here I am, two days into a terrible bout of blechghs that (if Mancub's progress is any indication) will stick around at least a week... and I am supposed to start back to work Wednesday after four months of parental leave. I'm not on my feet much right now, we'll see how I'm doing in a few days.

In my desperation to fully finish Bridgewater before returning to work, I blocked it today. Illness be damned!  

Allow me to share a few truths and thoughts culled from this experience:

• My study is narrow; my Bridgewater is not. 
• Finished dimensions: center garter section, 36" x 36"; total piece, 54" x 54" 

Yes, my study is that narrow! In fairness, it's lined on one side
by a wall of bookcases and on the other by a wall of deep cabinets.

• Blocking a large lace piece on the floor while suffering a flu that includes impacted sinuses is painful and exhausting and decidedly not recommended.
• Lace blocking wires are little miracles. It may take awhile to thread them onto the shawl, but it's nothing compared to the time you would spend pinning the whole thing! 
• When blocking on the floor, it's best to have more than six inches of walking space around the item, not only so you can move your body but so you can manipulate the wires.
• If your edge is longer than a single wire and you need to use two, don't bother with any of the tricks recommended to connect the wires (such as taping them). It just makes the stitches move less easily along the wire and doesn't yield enough benefit to be worth the aggravation.
• Turn off that space heater! Otherwise the lace dries lickety-split before you get the wires set. You need all that wonderful dampness you spent 20 minutes soaking into it to hang around awhile.
• A little lavender essential oil in the spray bottle when you re-moisten is heavenly!
• Block in a space where it's possible to close the door and have everyone -- cats, dogs, kids, etc. -- forget it exists for at least 24 hours.
• Insanity is not the answer. Leave your inner perfectionist at the door and allow that not every single line will be perfectly parallel/square/perpendicular/straight/whatever. Get the dimensions right; make it look good; do your best; be happy with your work. Remember that when the fabric's on your shoulders, you want it to move fluidly and defy the rigidity of the lines.

Someday soon I'll give Bridgewater a proper photographing. The beach towels and rug don't do it justice!

Hemlock Ring Lap Blanket

Pattern: Hemlock Ring Doily (1942 vintage pattern), modified into a blanket by Jared Flood
Started: March 1, 2008
Completed: March 17, 2008
Materials: Cascade Ecological Wool, latte, 2 skeins
Needles: US 10 / 6.0 mm (40" circular)

At most recent count, I am one of 963 people making Jared's modification of the Hemlock Ring. That's on Ravelry alone! The current project count is here for any curious Ravelry users.

I like the pattern. I like the idea. I'm not completely smitten with my finished results. I opted to take it to a dry cleaner to be professionally steamed and blocked, but I don't think they blocked it quite as aggressively as it needs. There's still some rippling in the feather and fan section, and the edges are pretty frilly.



If I had the stamina for six to eight more rounds of increases, the finished piece would be closer to the size I fantasized wrapping myself in on cold days. While I wouldn't exactly call it tiny, it's definitely a lap blanket. To give you a sense of scale, I took a a full-on picture the likes of which I normally would never do. Here it is on my 54-inch diameter table:



See what I mean?

The fact that the center medallion didn't lose all its texture makes me really happy. I like the three dimensionality. Pics like this make me feel all warm and gooey inside:



Deep inside, I know I'm going to have another go at the blocking. I have a professional steamer, so I think I ought to be able to do at least a little good. I'll try to leave the texture in the center medallion and just straighten out the feather-and-fan section.

I do like it! It's warm, and it looks lovely on the back of our comfy chair upstairs!



I'm curious how many more people will make this pattern with the modification. I'm not sure the project really merits all the interest. I'm not sure I'd make it again.

If I had to take a guess at what, exactly, draws so many of us to it, I think it's a sense of being part of something larger than ourselves. We've all seen and knit lace patterns before. There's a comfortable, conventional way we go about it. We use delicate yarn. Doilies are doilies. Shawls are shawls... and so on. But Jared repurposed the doily. He defamiliarized the familiar — made it strange. In theatre, thanks to Bertolt Brecht, we call this kind of defamiliarization Verfremsdung Effekt. And in making the familiar strange, Jared caused us all to start looking at things differently. What other pattern types might we work with a radically different fiber weight than is called for? Are there other doilies that can be expanded endlessly?

It's not enough to simply see the results of Jared's experiment. We need to try it, too, so we can learn the same lessons Jared learned but in our own hands. So we can carry that knowledge, through our fingers, into our own experiments.

The experiment itself may not produce the results we desire, but it's a worthy experiment. It's a learning process, not just the fetishization of someone else's cool project. Jared creates learning opportunities with many of his projects. Just think of all the sweaters being turned into cardigans these days thanks to the influence of his modified Urban Aran.

I think we pick up his projects because they give us new ways of seeing and knowing through the craft of knitting. Well, that and the guy has killer taste!

As for my final take on this particular pattern, the flower attracts me the most. I plan to design a project sometime in the future that makes use of the central medallion in another way, perhaps setting it into a square rather than continuing in-the-round. The wheels are turning... !