It's been three years and a month since I started fantasizing about making a sweater from this yarn in this stitch pattern.  And two weeks before that was when I started messing around with the stitch pattern.  Slow and steady wins the race ... ha!

I swear I saw play mats like this for sale at the dollar store, but I could never track them down again.  My craft night buddy Anne gave the the heads up that our local drugstore had them for $7 or so for 9.  Not bad, so I picked up a set.

Here is the sweater pre-wetting.  I want to tell everyone who gave me blocking advice, THANK YOU!  You definitely kept me from total disaster.  I was really liking the idea of hanging the sweater.  Ha!

I scrubbed the hell out of the kitchen sink, then used the dish sprayer (I love that thing!) to gently wet the sweater.  Once everything was wet, I pressed out the excess with my hands.  Then I laid the sweater on a towel, rolled it up, and then stood on it to squeeze out more water.

When I was shaping the sweater, I had my tape measure in hand to make sure that the motifs were 3" tall.  I didn't want to over-stretch it.

My friend June warned me that the cotton Patons Grace yarn can take forever to dry when blocking, which is why I waited until I had the play mats.  I can only imagine how long it would take on a thirsty cotton towel.

As it is, the sweater has been there for about 36 hours ... and it's still damp.  Gah!  This is testing my patience.  ;)