Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Being Good, Blocking

Last Saturday, I had colds so I stayed home the whole day being good by finishing all the backstitches on Morning Lake.  Isn't it funny that I had to be sick just to finished it?  :-D

Here it is being dried:
Now, all it needs is some ironing and then framing:

And I also have some progress on Tropical Fruits, not much, but still progress as they say :-D

Last week's:
As of April 4, 2011
And this week's:
As of April 11, 2011
Also last week, I did post this photo of my doily project which was unwashed and unblocked:
Last Sunday, I washed it and blocked.  Kim asked what blocking is all about.  You can find here the explanation.  But in short, it is the method of “molding” or "stretching" your finished work into the shape that you desire.

I used this styrofoam as my blocking board where I cut my needle organizers from:
Here's the doily being blocked while still wet after washing:
I thought blocking is as easy as 1-2-3.  But it is not.  I think I've spent more than 30 minutes trying to get the perfect shape and yet, to my eyes, it is still not what I wanted.  I counted all the pins I used, it's 96 pieces!

Here it is now on the table and you can now see it's true shape unlike when it was not blocked yet:
With lights on

Without lights
 My mother put the candles as decoration.  Maybe I will try to look for candles with contrasting colors.

Thanks for reading this week's update.  Take care everyone!

11 comments:

Midge said...

Sorry to hear you have been ill! Morning Lake looks fantastic and I eagerly await it's framing.
The fruit is coming along great and the crochet mat looks superb.

rosek1870 said...

Wow Toni you are quite a talented lady! I love Morning Lake it us just beautiful and your progress on the fruit is really great. Your crochet floors me. I have never been able to figure it out and yours is just amazing! Can't wait to see what you do next!

Rose

The Knitting Cross Stitcher said...

Wow Toni, your crochet looks brilliant. Just read the blocking article..very informative. Tropical Fruits is coming on well, I fancy banana now :) and congrats on finishing Morning Lake, it is lovely.Hope you are fully recovered.

Rhona said...

Morning lake looks wonderful! Good start on the tropical fruits. As for your crochet....wow, you are very talented!

Kim said...

Toni the crochet mat looks AMAZING!! You have made a wonderful job of it and it was well worth all those pins to get it to look so wonderful. You really have made it look beautiful and I love it with the lights on, you can see the colours better.

Good progress on tropical fruits and I was so happy to see you've finished morning lake now (looks fantastic!) but not happy to know you've been ill, take care won't you ... sending massive hugs!

:)
x x x x

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

Circles are sooooo hard to get right. I didn't realise how big this one was til you showed it with the candles! I love the colours too.

http://serendipitousstitching.blogspot.com/

Eileen said...

Toni,
Your morning lake is stunning! I love your doily and I didn't realize blocking could make that much of a difference. Thanks for sharing before and after pics. I hope you are feeling better. Can't wait to see what you will make next! :)

Eileen
www.crochetattic.blogspot.com

Ninu said...

Morning lake looks stunning! Love the doily colours!

Lili said...

wow, the morning lake is beautiful! well done!
hope you feeling better.
Hugs,
Lili

Hillery said...

Hello, thanks for stopping by my blog. I see you are also a crochet and cross stitch lover. Your projects are lovely. Looking forward to stopping by here more often.

Anonymous said...

Morning Lake looks fantastic! A great finish :) I hope your cold wasn't to bad, but at least there was something good about it :)
You did a great job blocking your doily project. Blocking is likely to take a lot of time, sometimes I spent hours blocking things. I blocked a lace shawl and used far more than 200 needles for it and it was so big! I used the whole floor and had it lying there for one or to days to ensure it was really dry and moving around it (without stepping into a needle) was really complicated ;)