A while back I was contacted by a young woman getting ready for her wedding. She had a rather unusal request: she needed a lace knit chuppah for her wedding blocked. Part of a traditional Jewish wedding is the chuppah: a canopy under which the couple stands during the wedding cerenony. The chuppah has a lot of symbolism. Some chuppahs can be very plain, but many of them are passed through the family, and are elaborate family herilooms made of lace and embroidery are not uncommon.
When I first spoke to the young lady, she admitted that she had gotten in touch with a few other finishers, and none of them could take on an item so large. She estimated that the finished piece would be about 10 by 10 feet. I have to admit, I went through the house with a measuring tape, measuring each room in my house to see if I could fit something so large. Luckily, our kitchen with all the furniture out would work. It was 14×14 feet – which would give me just enough room to be able to walk around it when the piece was laid out.
This piece was being knit on a deadline, so the other complication was that it would have to be turned around in a week – so there was enough time for the piece to get back to the bride for the wedding day.
A few days before the chuppah was supposed to arrive, I got another email from the bride… would I be OK if the piece was a bit larger than 10×10? I replied it would be OK.
The night after I got the piece, I pulled our couch, table and chairs out of kitchen. Then a sweep and mop – I wanted the floor to be pristine!
The chuppah here is sandwiched between several dozzen towels so I could squeeze all the moisture out of it. The floor is freshly mopped, and I’m ready to go. Now it’s time for me to set up our blocking mat.
We saved a lot of large boxes after our move just for the purpose of blocking large items. Admitedly, before this the largest piece I blocked was my Swirling Shell Shawl, which was one of the largest lace shawls I’ve had to block. Even still, I had to add extra boxes around the edges to make the blocking space large enough. This took over our whole kitchen floor!
Alrighty, here we go stretching it out. I’m starting to lay it out and it’s become very clear already that this thing is going to be huge. I’m glad at this point I bought more blocking wires. I literally have every single t-pin and u-pin I own pulled out.
Thank goodness this pattern has points to it. I decided to go with looping the blocking wires through the points of the lace shawl. I’m loosely pinning as I go, but I’ll fuss with things and shift it around as I go. I’ve got 3 blocking wires I’m using per side, and I’m not sure at this point if it makes sense to pin the corners as points or as curves, but I have flexible blocking wires for the corners to curve it if I need to. Each side is taking me upwards of 20 minutes to pin out.
As I’ve continued on I realized that I would need 4 blocking wires per side, so I’ve went back and redone it. I’ve got things all stretched out, and now it’s time for the fussing. Meanwhile though… the lace is so fine that parts of the shawl have nearly dried before I’ve finished laying it out. I’ll go back and give it a spray of water all over to moisten it up and make sure it stays wet until I’ve got everything as I want it.
I’ve also noticed now that I’ve laid things out that the corners DEFINATELY need to be curved instead of pointed.
The corners look so much better curved instead of as a point. I’ve straigtened the lines of the lace, re-moistened a final time. I’ve gotten out the yardstick and made sure the edges are nice and straight, and re-pinned everything out. The lace is so fine that I give things a final steam with an iron in the most important places to make sure it stays the way I wanted it.
Now I’ve got to point out some the lacework on this piece:
Look at the center! This lovely georgeous star pattern!
Look at the lovely transitions between lace!
And the edging! What a demonstration of dedication!
