Pictures of Success . . . and the Road . . .

As promised, here are the photos of the completed Dragon Scales Scarf and I finally blocked and finished up that one I made with the hand-painted alpaca (the softest yarn ever!).

First, my blocking experience . . . because my mom is here, I made use of her crafting experience and she showed me yet another way to block things that I think works especially well for scarves, so give it a whirl. First, make sure you have the pins you'll need and a measuring tape, iron, and ironing board. Just start pinning away and use the measuring tape to ensure that the scarf or whatever you are blocking is the measurement you want. Take a damp cotton cloth (one of those sack-clothe dish towels works well) and place it over the scarf. Finally, with the iron on the correct setting to steam for your fabric (wool setting for wool yarn, etc) - press the iron to the damp cloth (you don't need to press down hard) and let the steam from the iron and damp towel do the work. Easy as pie and I think you may like this method for smaller pieces. Here's what we've got . . .

This is the Alpaca scarf finished. It's super warm, so if you ever decide to whip one of these out (it took about an hour to make), but don't make it too wide or you'll never wear it.







This is the Dragon Scales pattern scarf made from the terra yarn. It is also super soft and the blocking really helped flatten out the finall project and make the pattern more visible.







Here is a detail of the Dragon Scales pattern.









Finally, my progress on the Alligator Wrap. I'm moving very slow on this one and I have to say the the pattern is pretty boring. However, getting to the different points where you switch out the colors is keeping it moving. I love the way it looks and I think I'll really enjoy it once it's done. For now though, thank goodness there's four inches of snow on the road and not much else to do!