Finishing a Shawl

So after knitting about six hours a day for two days, I finished my shawl!!!

Nice shot of the back lace panel.

 I finished it at about 11:00 at night and as soon as I was done I put it over my shoulders. It was pretty small, but then again compared to national averages, so am I so I figured it would be alright. Then I blocked it. I was a bit concerned about the blocking process since I had never done it before, but things went well.
I have a special salad bowl that I use for fiber. I mostly use it to soak wool before I dye it and rinse it afterwards, but I figured I could use it to wet block my shawl too.
So I filled the bowl with cool water and let the shawl soak over night. I realize I probably shouldn't have let it sit so long, but I really didn't have a plan for pinning it, and I figured that if the super wash wool couldn't handle sitting in still water for a few hours, we would have other problems.

My four year old really likes to stick my pins in things.

But everything worked out. When I took it out of the water, it looked like the shawl had almost doubled in size. When I had finished it the night before the lace was pretty squished and hard to read. You could tell it was lace, but you really had to stretch it to see the pattern. I was a bit unsure of the added beads to begin with, but I really was liking them as I saw everything opened up.

Pins holding the side edge in place.

I didn't have any blocking foam to set the shawl on, but I did have an unused foam mattress pad. It actually worked really well. The waves on the surface allowed the shawl to have much more of its area exposed directly to the air, and it dried really fast.

I consider this first endeavor into blocking to be a success. I really enjoyed ending with a real product as well. I have always been one of those knitters who doesn't follow patterns and ends up with a bunch of scarves because of it, but this experience went really well and I love having this elegant piece to add to my closet. Plus it is one of my favorite colors.