Nickolai Gurgeiff - Shawl Care

Take care about your shawl!

To protect the shawl from moths, dirt and damage it has to be loosely knotted into a ball and kept in a large canning jar.

Gossamer shawls are washed in clear or white dish soap and left wet for blocking. Warm shawls are worn for a couple of days to raise the nap and then washed and blocked the same way; when dry, they are moistened and brushed to further raise the nap.

Blocking is done on a wooden frame made of four slats of strong, nonwarping wood with rustproof nails spaced one inch apart on all four sides. Frame is also made from metal tubing. Or you don't have a special frame for blocking - it can be done on any large, flat surface.

For blocking on a frame, thread a thick cord of nylon loosely through the ends of the teeth counter-clockwise around the shawl. Do not use cotton, wool or silk for blocking cord because the stitches will not slide easily. Starting at one corner, thread through the teeth from back to front (picking up from front to back will cause a twist to the point called a "goat's teat"). After threading, loop the cord over the nails of the blocking frame.

To block a shawl on a flat surface, first thread the teeth with cord as described above prior to washing; wash the shawl once the blocking cord is in place. Using T-pins, anchor the four corners to give the shawl its basic shape and size. Next,

Connect the four corner T-pins with a separate length of cord as in a carpenter's plumb line. Now set the center sections of all sides by pulling the cord between the teeth out to this "plumb line" and anchoring with T-pins. Lastly, anchor the remaining cord to the plumb line.

Always pin into the loops formed by the cord, not into the shawl. Adjust the pins and cord as necessary until the shawl is stretched taut.

Because of the direction of the knitting a square shawl must be blocked 1 to 2 inches longer in length than width to insure squareness when unpinned. In a hot room, a shawl takes about twenty-four hours to dry. Do not touch the shawl during drying. After shawl is blocked, the knitter goes over it and picks out any remaining guard hair. As she works she kneads the shawl in her hands to soften it and raise the nap. Clean shawl has a hard, shiny look and feel. The nap rises gradually with use and humidity and it helps to wear a new shawl outdoors on a foggy or snowy day.

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