Wedding Shawl

Well here it is the yarn for the wedding shawl......to catch up. Last summer I bought a copy of Interweave Crochet. In it I saw a lovely lace shawl and thought ummm I'd like to make that, then put it to the back of my mind. Jumpt to last month when I overheard one of my work colleagues saying she didn't have a shawl for her wedding dress...yes you can see where this is heading. Up I jump and volunteer to make this. I've got till June, I've hardly ever worked lace, I don't even know if I can use such a small hook 1.75.

Well I've bought the yarn which cost £42!!! well at least she is paying for that..here is the yarn and a tension sample. This turned out to be too small so I'm now doing one with a 2.5 hook but now a post on my Crochet Me newsletter has made me really worried. Basically it showed how much you stretch out lace when you block it. So do I have to block and stretch my tension samples when I measure them, if so then it might be that my tension samples are all wrong and that maybe the one using the suggested hook size is the right one once its been blocked. Please can anybody advise me on this?

Any helpful comments greatly appreciated.....thanks in advance