I finished my Zuzu’s Petals. Actually, I finished it twice. Despite being really sure that I wasn’t going to have enough yarn, I had more than enough, and ended up embiggenning the pattern pretty substantially. When I realized that there was a ton of yarn left, I did an extra repeat of the lace, and then several more rows of the last section – increasing a little near the bottom edge so that it would keep flaring and lie flat. Worked a treat too – and when the time came to cast off, I took the suggestion in the pattern, and did a really stretchy bind-off, and while I was doing it, it was coming out sort of … ruffly. “That bind-off is too stretchy” I told myself, and then I said that thing that every knitter always says while they’re doing something that clearly isn’t working.  “It will block out” I muttered, and I kept right on going. The whole thing had taken less than 24 hours. I wasn’t going to let a little something like common sense slow me down. Even though that sort of thing never blocks out, I proceeded to finish, soak it, then stand around with pins and high hopes, trying to block out the ruffly edge.

It didn’t block out. When I was done, all I had was a wet cowl with a ruffly edge.

Now, the humidity is about 120% in Toronto right now, and this is alpaca, and so drying took a long time, but when it was finally dry,  it truly hadn’t blocked out. (I really had hoped that drying might fix it, but it never does, and it didn’t.) I sat myself down, undid the entire bind off, picked all the stitches back up, and did my regular bind-off all the way around.

Victory, my pets, was mine. This time it lay perfectly flat, the edge all I’d hoped for, and more.  I decided that I would try it on and take a few pictures to show you. There are none. I went out in the backyard, and tried to pull it over my sweaty self – it’s about 40 degrees here today (That’s 104, for my American friends) and I almost had instant heatstroke. It was on me for about 13 seconds, the alpaca clinging to me, the fuzz dampening, me getting warmer and warmer, and in the end, I couldn’t do it. I had to get it off me before I died from the attempt.

Pattern: Zuzu’s Petals. Yarn: My own handspun, from Upstream Alpacas hand painted combed top, 100% baby alpaca, in “Cappuccino”.

It’s going to look great on me in January. That’s when I’m putting it on again.