I knit this large blanket back in January, during the last few days of my holidays....but hadn't yet managed to find the time or motivation to set about the chore of blocking it. And, since I had left it up at my parents a month or so ago (secretly wishing that my Mum might get tired to seeing it and just do it for me), I was mostly able to ignore it. Truth be told I was a little worried that it wouldn't work out -- either the edge was going to be too tightly cast off....or the waves and buckles in the centre would be permanent.
But this weekend, everything seemed so perfect, so peaceful and yet still so productive, that I decided it was as good a time as any to haul out the blanket. My parent's weathered deck was the perfect place for this task -- we were able to line up two of the sides parallel with the boards and then eyeball the other edges, plus the texture of the wood helped to keep the wool to stay put, pretty much, and 4 little thumbtacks worked to hold the corners and get the maximum stretch along the cast-off edge. Still, it was very much a two-person job – that was a lot of wet wool to wrestle!
The warm sun dried it in short order, and I was reassured that all was well in the world of my mitered blanket. I just have about 4-5 ends to sew in, but it's absolutely perfect! :-D And now I have renewed energy to start the bed-sized version I was dreaming about back in January...so I'm looking forward to (hopefully) starting work on that in June, once the OHCG Annual is put to bed. Visions of reds, pinks, oranges and touches of turquoisey blues and greens are dancing in my head....
