I stole a bit of time today to get my brown/gray shawl pinned out and blocking. Lace is INCREDIBLY stretchy – or at least if knit from a good wool, alpaca, or other animal fiber – it should be. Here it is in an optically challenging presentation thanks to the rally check sheets I use as an alignment aid:

The checks make it very hard to see, but you can make out a bit more of the pattern now in the detail shot. I promise more pix tomorrow, and I’ll take those on a plain white background.

Now how stretchy is lace? My unblocked piece was approximately 39 inches across. See those checks? They’re 2 inch squares. My shawl is pinned out to be a square of approximately 60 inches on a side. My guess is that it will spring back somewhat after it’s dry. I’ll probably end up with something closer to 54 inches on a side (about 4.5 feet across).

We also made significant progress on the final stage of our bathroom renovation this weekend. Here you see The Resident Male exercising his inner artist. Before you write to me with safety tips, please note that we’ve got about 2 inches of closed cell camping mattress pad topped with another layer of bath towel underneath the no-slip tarp in the tub. The ladder is stable, and won’t mar the surface beneath its feet. Plus the ceiling is so low that no one has to climb above the second step to reach it.

As to the color – I don’t know if you can make out the difference given the variability among monitors, but the ceiling is bright white, and the walls are barely green. Not mint, not pistachio. Think three gallons of milk with one drop of food coloring. It’s my hope that they will contrast nicely with the white tile underparts and fixtures, echo (just barely) the green tile accent stripe, green stone sink top, greenish tint of the glass shower door, and make the green (rather than the yellow) in the stained glass window pop out more.

Even though it’s shrouded in protective plastic, you can see that the refinishing of the window and its replacement in the wall have both accomplished. A special merit badge for chemical management (with scrapers rampant) to he who did that work. Goodbye ugly mustard yellow enamel paint! And good riddance.

Comments Problems

We’re having intermittent problems with the comments feature that screens out automatic postings. Sometimes if you go to enter your comments the little “type what you see here” box isn’t displaying. If you want to leave a comment please scroll down and make sure that you can see that box before you begin typing. If it’s not there, try reloading the screen. We’re not quite sure what’s happening, although we’re working on it. When he’s not elbow deep in brushes and rollers, The Resident Male (website plumber par excellence) is busy applying his biggest software wrenches to wiseNeedle’s pipes. Apologies for any/all inconvenience.

Technorati : knitting; bathroom renovation