My latest release, the Punch Bowl Shawl (the first release in Year Two of the League of Busy B’s) is a crescent-shaped shawl, created by working increases on the outer edge of the shawl only. This can pose a bit of a problem, blocking-wise, and, since I’ve had some queries, I thought I’d do a quick-and-dirty how-to-block post, with the promise of adding better photos and more information later. This should serve to get you blocking that Punch Bowl, or Farmer’s Market, or Flotus a bit more easily…
Because of the shaping of the crescent shawl, that little roll at the top of the neck is kind of unavoidable, although stringent blocking goes a long way toward pulling it out. In a crescent shawl, you only have your increases on the outside edges, whereas in a triangular shawl, you put increases in the middle, which helps to straighten out the top of the shawl. Without those center increases, the top of the shawl wants to bump out a bit, and sometimes you even get what some folks call a little mustache-shape right in the top center.
If you block pretty vigorously, pulling the bottom center of the shawl out particularly, that helps, but that wee roll will happen regardless as the shawl relaxes into its day-to-day shape, and as its worn, post-blocking.
Here’s a terrible photo (with a wee photo bomber) of my Punch Bowl blocking. You can see that I used blocking wires and pulled the center particularly.
Here’s one of one of my Floti blocking. You see that on both, I’ve used blocking wires to pull the bottom edge of the shawl out as much as possible, particularly right there in the middle, so that little bump gets pulled into a straight line…
I hope this helps!