Yarnification

Hey folks…

Doily status: MIL’s doilies are done and on the blocking board. Major accomplishment; they’ve been done for something like a week but I’d been putting off blocking (my back has been worse than usual lately, and even on a good day blocking tends to make my back achy from hunching over the board). Pinned them out last night, and they were just slightly damp this morning, so I should be able to get a photo of them tonight and then mail them off tomorrow.

Here it is—proof that I finally got off my butt and did it:

That board is a 4 foot by 4 foot square of super-thick cardboard (actually it’s folded in half, so really it’s 4 by 8 feet), and I finally got the doily and snowflake blocking patterns on there. (Packing tape is my friend!) Having patterns to block to was a help. (I did the itty-bitty coaster-size doily on the snowflake pattern rather than faux-laminate a second doily blocking pattern.) I had some trouble centering things properly on the patterns but even so it was much easier to see if I was keeping things even. (Link for the blocking patterns, in case anyone wants copies: Blocking patterns and blocking boards. The snowflake one is under the “Making the ultimate snowflake blocking board” section, and the doily one is here—the link on the site is broken right now* but this one seems to work—and the instructions for using it are further down under “A diversion into doilies”. You print out four copies of it and pin them all through the center to make the big circle.)

(* Thanks to Heather for letting me know that link was broken!)

The nice thing about the size of that giant blocking board is that I no longer have an excuse to put off blocking the pineapple square thing, which I made ages ago but couldn’t block at the time since I didn’t have anything big enough. Now I do, so that’s on my to-do list for the near future.

I’m sure I meant to talk about something else, but I’m completely addled today. I don’t know why; I’ve finished my coffee, I got a decent amount of sleep, and I can’t think of any other reason why I’m so out of it. But I am, so I’m done. Will be back later if I remember what I meant to say!

Oh, came back to say I remembered: Where do you folks get those T-pins that I keep seeing in photos of things being blocked? And are they much more expensive than regular stainless steel pins? Those round-headed pins were about killing me last night. They were never much of a problem before, but with this very thick cardboard it’s harder to push them in, and I think the T-shaped kind might be easier…