Inevitable construction work

Since blocking frames for lace shawls are not sold anywhere, I had to make one myself. It might need some improvements, but the blocking process is much more convenient now compared to using pins and trying to locate them in straight rows.




A visit to hardware store resulted in four 15 x 40 mm pine wood strips, one and two meters long



and too many and too expensive but very pretty brass nails (the original plan was to put a nail for each cm).



Hammering nearly 600 nails into these six meters of wood suddenly seemed like way too much work, so the nails are now 5 cm apart. This distance seems to work for lace edgings, where the pattern repeat is 10-12 stitches. For different patterns it might be necessary to add all these nails after all. Well, someday.



Considering all these upward nails, the frame is by no means a safe tool and should be used in a place where nobody can get hurt. Storaging is quite all right though, the four strips can be tied together with nails facing inwards and stored under the bed or in a closet. That's what knitters keep there instead of skeletons.

Meet Mannie

Mannie came to me feeling somewhat tired and neglected. She was really happy to hear that I was looking for an assistant and eager to start working right away.



Mannie is my only helper at the moment, doing fitting and modelling, and hopefully will help out with some bookkeeping and supplies shopping as well in the future. (Haven't told her that yet, letting her enjoy the summer first.)

Mannie before and after the makeover:




First thing, of course, was to make Mannie a new proper outfit.
I needed to find a fabric that was stretchy, textured and of beautiful cream or beige colour. Not an easy task at all, but... accomplished - after going through ALL the fabric stores in the city in two days.
This fabric is probably a mixture of cotton and synthetics and not so stretchy as Mannie's old dress, so I had to make a cut in the back and add a zipper.




To give a matching finishing to Mannie's wooden leg, I painted it with water diluted wall paint in three coats. The outcome was really surprising, looking as if the wood had been sandpapered and lime painted and all...