More About Blocking…

May 20, 2009 by Terrye

Blocking is a most important part of knitting. Or finishing. Or both, really. You can gain length or width. You can open up a scrunched up lace design, and you can “gently stretch to fit” a garment that isn’t behaving as expected.

Wools that need to be stretched generally respond best to wet blocking. This is how I would block a wool garment that needs to be “rearranged”. Mix in with hot, hot water, some Soak, Eucalan, or other Wool Wash. Gently immerse the item into the hot, hot water, and let it soak, squeezing gently every now and then to remove dirt, debris… When the water is lukewarm let it drain. Fill up the sink again with lukewarm water and gently squeeze the rest of the wool wash out and let drain again. Lift up the item and gently press it between towels to remove as much as the water as possible. Then lay it out, arranging it the way you want it. Pin and let dry.

You can also use steam blocking if your item doesn’t really need to be washed. To do this, lay out your piece, and then either put a wet towel on top of the item to be blocked and press with a hot iron (don’t move the iron over it, just up and down), or just use a hot iron without the wet towel, making sure not to touch the fabric, just letting the steam go through it. Rearrange it and let it dry.

Spritzing until damp and letting dry is another option.

My favorite? The first, since usually by the time I’m done knitting an item, it’s been sitting in the bottom of my knitting bag, taken road trips (or sometimes bike trips) and is generally just a bit dirty or dusty.

Knitty.com has a wonderful article about blocking that elaborates on the process including various types of fibers. You can read that here: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter02/FEATdiyknitter.html

Have you read?

A Shawlette with a Ton of Design Options

There’s a lot to like about the Eloise Bandana from Katryn Seeburger. This cute little colorwork triangle can be worked as a bandana or kerchief size or a bigger shawlette.

It’s worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn so you can use whatever yarn you have in your stash and just make it as big as you can (since it is worked from the bottom up).

You can see the two sizes from the photo, and also two colorwork options: strawberries and lily of the valley.

But that’s not all the choices you have. In fact, there are 34 different charts you can choose from to knit onto your project. Some of the options include happy faces, a lobster, a pumpkin, a snail and a butterfly. There are cherries, peaches, tomatoes and radishes.

There’s even a blank square you can use to draw your own little design if you want to use something else. Or keep it blank and make it a plain checkerboard design.

And while both of these shawls use the same icons throughout, you could also use different designs throughout if you want. Say a fall version with a bat, pumpkin, leaf and acorn, or a summer beach theme with sailboat, fish, lobster and a bird? I keep suggesting four different icons because the larger size has four rows of squares, but the smaller has three, so you could do stripes of the same icon or alternate a couple of different ones, whatever you like.

Look through the finished projects on the Ravelry project page to see lots of different options, from rows to individual icons. There are also some projects that are smaller than the suggested size to make a smaller bandana. You could also keep going a make a bigger shawl working increases in the same way as you have been going.

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Katryn Seeburger]