Blocking Part 1

My first big adventure in knitting was taking on a sweater for my daughter. Finally something that is not square or rectangular! With this new project I'm learning a lot about natural fibers (totally in love but that's another post) and how to knit with them. Now that I've got the pieces knitted up I find out that I have to block them and realize that I have no idea how to go about this. Thank goodness for the Internet! I found this wonderful tutorial on Knitty on how to block garments. It talks mainly about wool but does give some advice on other fibers as well and sends you in the right direction if you really want to become an expert on the subject.



So back to the sweater; after many weeks of calling my sister-in-law and bugging her about what a certain step in the pattern really wanted me to do I have four pieces for my daughters sweater. Now comes the easy part (well maybe) of blocking and seaming. The sweater is made of 100% Alpaca and the article in Knitty suggests dry pinning and then spritzing before reshaping. Like a rebel though I decided to go the wet blocking method, please don't call the knitting police on me. I decided on the wet blocking for two reasons, 1) I live with a toddler and I'm pretty sure something was spilled on a few of the pieces during the last several weeks; they needed washing, 2) I'm a fairly tight knitter and realized that the pieces might be on the smallish side so I wasn't worried about stretching.



After washing the pieces by hand in cool water and baby shampoo, I rinsed them and patted most of the moisture out with a bath towel. I took the damp towels and laid them out on the end of my bed and proceeded to pin the pieces out flat.

Another option, besides using your bed our couch, would be to make a blocking board. These would be convenient in many ways, most of which they're somewhat portable and you can move them around. Right now I'm praying these will be dry by the time I decide to go to be tonight, I'm not sure what I'll do if they don't. So now we wait.............