"You need:
Blocking wires and/or rust proof pins, a cotton dish towel or a piece of cotton fabric, and an iron.
In Arctic Lace, I mentioned that you can't knit lace with acrylic yarns because they won't keep their shape when blocked. This is true if you follow the procedure above.
However, when I went to the Boise Lace Knitting retreat a couple of months ago, one of the other attendees, Pat Stevens, proved me wrong. Here's her technique for "killing" acrylic yarn to give it a gorgeous drape.
Wet your knitting, spin it out in a washer. Lay a sheet on the carpet. Pin the piece exactly the size you want. (I stretch my lace shoulder warmers pretty hard.) Lay a wet cotton dish towel or piece of fabric over it. With a hot iron press down all over the thing. Don't iron just press. I press until the top cloth is very dry. Then I leave it overnight to finish drying. It's that easy. I really press it a lot, it's the steam heat that makes the acrylic look and drape like rayon. You may want to knit a large swatch and test it out.
Edited to add this note in response to a question a reader sent me in email: Acrylic yarn gets "killed" by the application of the heat and it will remain dead after future washings and retain its new shape. You should only have to do this treatment once, as far as I can tell, whereas you normally have to reblock lace knitted in wool or other natural fibers after each washing.
Here's another tip that just arrived in my email from Renee' Wells, whom I also met at the Boise Lace Knitting Retreat (Renee' teaches some great classes on Japanese knitting and if you ever have a chance to take one of them, don't miss it!):
This can also be done dry. Sometimes I place the item on a towel with a wet cloth above. Press and then gently stretch the item into the new shape. You can pick up the cloth between wettings and see where more pressing is needed to even it out. The advantage to this method is greater stretch. You must be careful not to let the item hang over the ironing board it you are trying it there. The weight will skew the shape. I often kill acrylic baby blankets, they morph into lovely exotic feeling fibers! No longer just acrylic! And the mums that receive them use them over and over because they do hold their new drape."
