Love Affair (Or, How to Block a Triangular Shawl)

I have knit a lot of shawls. Many, many shawls I knit because a shawl is the easiest item for me to knit out of the gorgeous skeins of yarn I can’t help myself from buying. There are so many beautiful shawl patterns out there and I love the ease of just matching a pattern to a beautiful skein of yarn and immediately casting on. It doesn’t take as much forethought to begin a shawl as it does a sweater. I generally knit shawls out of fingering or laceweight yarn, and I know what needles work best to get the gauge I want and that will work with my pattern. This allows me to start (and finish) shawls almost continuously.

As a result, I not only have at least one shawl on my needles all the time, I also have over 45 shawls in my shawl bin under my bed that I pull out and wear almost daily. Now, I am aware that this is A LOT of shawls. I don’t think I realized how many shawls I was storing down there until I started pulling them out for my sister, a fellow knitter, to see while she was visiting last spring. It was shocking (and a little embarrassing).

I don’t think I realized how many shawls I have, because although I’m constantly rotating what shawls I wear, I definitely have my favorites and probably only wear about fifteen of them regularly. Since pulling them out and counting them all, I’ve been trying to figure out why I wear some more than others, and I can’t really put my finger on what makes some shawls my favorites while others end up getting buried in the bowels of the bin.

I can’t tell when I start a shawl if it’s going to be one of my favorites or not. It doesn’t seem to make a difference if the knit was more enjoyable or interesting to knit. I love every shawl while I’m knitting it, because I simply just love to knit. I’m not really thinking of wearing the shawl while I’m knitting. That’s not the important part. I am just enjoying the process of the knit.

When I really fall in love, though, is when I’m blocking the shawl for the first time. Blocking usually takes longer than I think it’s going to, but it is only then when I really see and appreciate the work I’ve done. (It is also when my family actually notices what I’ve been working on for the past month, but that  is perhaps a post for another time.)

Strangely, blocking each shawl kind of feels like a fond farewell. Once it comes off the blocking board, it becomes an article of clothing and no longer “my knitting.” Blocking is when I transform my work into something else entirely, something I will either love to wear or not. By then, though, it doesn’t really matter to me so much.

In the act of blocking each shawl, I am completely smitten. I am in love.Weaving the blocking wire across the top edge of the triangular shawl, I go under each purl ridge and over each knit ridge all the way across the top.
I then pin the wire in place with T-pins.This secures the top into a nice, straight edge before pinning out each point.I then pin each and every point, starting with the center point and moving up evenly along each edge of the shawl, readjusting as necessary as I go. This is the part that always seems to take forever and when I embrace the fact, yet again, that I am too anal for my own good…But, then again, that is also when I am so absolutely taken by the beauty of what I have just finished. I am so in love with every single stitch, every perfect little point, that it all feels worth it. At this point, it just doesn’t matter if I ever wear this shawl. Seeing my work stretched out in its glorious perfection is enough. Every single time I block my shawls, I have a total love affair. I just can’t help myself…
But, in this case, I have a feeling I’m going to wear this particular shawl a lot. All the pieces came together perfectly, and I just love every single thing about it. This one may just find a way to stay near the top of the bin.

(This shawl was knit as part of the Shawl Society Knitalong I’m hosting through Needlepoint Joint. We are attempting to knit all six patterns as part Helen Stewart‘s Shawl Society in six months. This is the Amulet Shawl, the second shawl of the series.)