The second day and my Lush cardi has gotten…well, not much longer. I managed to cast on the left hand yoke at 7.40am this morning before I went to work and this is how big it has gotten since then. 

Bit pitiful when you see the progress in the chat thread and on twitter at #LushPodKAL.

A lot of  Lush-alongers are getting to the stage where they are ready to block their lace yoke and there have been a few questions about the best way to block and how long the piece should be.

I love blocking in terms of what it does to the item and how the FO looks, but I really hate grappling with the blocking; I never seem to have space big enough and Jeremy-Jean always seems to like to get involved somehow!

When I blocked my last Lush I knew I my gauge was right and so even though the pattern doesn’t say how long your yoke should be – I reckoned that if it blocked the width to the correct dimension of 4.5 inches then hopefully the length would magically be right. And it was! But if you are like me, you are going to look at the length of the yoke and think, “that is way too long!”. Remember though that the next step involves picking up stitches and making short rows and suddenly your yoke will “become”.

If you are looking for tips on how to block your lush yoke, or how the yoke should look then check out Lush-designer Emily’s blog on her Lush in progress. and there are also wider tips from Tin Can Knits on how to block your lace garments. Knitty.com  also has a good article on blocking and how different yarns will behave and the tools you will need.

If this is your first garment where you need to block anything then there is a very, very simple video from Howcast.com, which first time blockers might be helpful.

I hope my progress picks up tomorrow – I am also trying to write a podcast episode for the weekend and finish my yarn reviews for that, too!