Block

To update you on all the knitting going on around here in anticipation of the Victoria FibreFest and Knit-Out.  Aidan is almost finished, just some buttons, a few ends and a label to go.  Photo to come soon.

Kieran is coming along nicely and is on the blocking board.  Let me tell you a little about how I block.  I like using blocking wires to keep the major sections straight and to reduce the amount of pinning, so first I thread those on between the edge st and the second st from the edge.  I weave the wire back and forth between the rows.  Then I pin the pieces down to my blocking board using stainless steel T-pins at all the major corners of the piece and stainless steel straight pins anywhere else they are needed.  My blocking board is a large piece of blue foam insulation from the hardware store.

This is the best part – for my standard patterns I’ve drawn up a cheat sheet in all my pattern sizes on a piece of gingham using fabric markers.  All I have to do is place the sweater pieces over their pattern piece on my blocking cloth and pin to fit the measurements.  I love it and it saves me so much time.

Once the pieces are pinned on I give them a very generous spritzing of water with a spray bottle, pat them down a bit with my hands to even things out and make sure the fibre gets good and wet.  Then I leave it overnight to dry.  Once on the board I can even lean the whole thing against a wall to get it out of the way.