Blocked Out
When Shakespeare wrote, “To be or not to be…” he was using autocorrect. The quote he dictated was, “To B or not to B?” Later, when he realized the mistake, ol’ Will just scooted on along with the updated version.
You see, he had just come from the local tavern where the purveyor and and resident washerwoman were locked in a heated debate over whether or not the tavern’s lace curtains needed to be blocked.
The question was intended to be Shakespeare’s shorthand for:
If you are writing a research paper and just stumbled across this little story, please know it is completely fabricated. Don’t cite this as evidence of anything... other than my own wish fulfillment!!
Should you block your knits?
My money says that you just answered that in your head! If you have knit long enough to figure out what blocking is, then you almost certainly have an opinion on when/how/why to block your knits.
Generally, my view is that if the knit object will ever touch water (in washing, etc.), you will eventually block it. The only exception to that is if you then plan to dry it in a machine dryer, every time.
Oh no, that means we have to address when you should (or should not) dry your hand knits in a dryer!!! (Agh! This is getting way more debate-ish than I intended!!)
La machina
Ok, so let’s get the dryer out of the way, since apparently I’m determined to make this complicated.
I use the machine dryer to dry my hand knits when:
they are socks made out of superwash yarn and I either need to wear them quickly, or I missed them when they got tossed in with the rest of the wet clothes.
it’s a sweater (or other item) made out of superwash yarn that I need to shrink up a bit—usually it’s because
I lost weightmy gauge was off and standard blocking would make it balloon out too much.it’s made out of acrylic and the dryer will soften the fabric, and/or not affect the final shape or look of the object.
it’s a blanket—acrylic or superwash—and I want to get more dog hair out of the fabric than the washer was able to remove. (Just being honest here.)
*Most of the time* I run the dryer on the lowest temperature setting as a precaution.
All the (blocking) things
I feel like I’m walking out onto one of those hanging foot bridges that spans a ravine. (I wish I knew if this was the set of an action or romance movie so I’d have an idea how this will go.)
The ways to block are numerous!
Steam block, wet block, dry block, sock block, pins, wires, blocking boards….
Within each of the items or processes listed lie a whole array of varied specifics. To be honest, I don’t think I could do them all justice. (Or I would bore you to tears in the attempt.)
So in the spirit of brevity, once again, I’ll share with you my philosophy on the topic and we can compare notes at the end.
The blocking paraphernalia that I choose to have on hand include:
two thick blue work out mats (Honest Moment—I’m cheap about things that I feel I can skimp on. I don’t want to spend massive amounts of money on mats that I can only use occasionally. Granted, I would adore having the 1” grids laid out for me….)
straight quilting pins with big yellow round heads (so I can find them when I drop them or leave them in my blocked item)
blocking wires (the poor elderly things are rather bent at this point, but they still work well enough)
whatever measuring tape I can lay my hands on
Eucalan or another wool wash
a clean bowl, though not a dedicated one (perhaps someday…)
clean, dry towels or the spin cycle of my washing machine
My set-up is in no way fancy, but it works for me. I have tried various styles of blocking, but I’ve pretty well landed on wet blocking. These are all the tools I ever really need.
Some block it wet
So why wet blocking? I figure that the main reasons to block an item are because:
the fabric needs to “release”—whether lace or cables or ribbing or what have you,
the stitches need a little help evening out,
the item will be going into the water to be washed throughout its lifetime (ie. sweaters, blankets, etc.), so I would prefer to “set” the stitches before I start using the knit item, or
it’s too SMALL!!! Grrr😡
Whatever the situation, I have found wet blocking to be the most logical route and to work the best for each of those purposes.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…
Blocking. Is. Magic.
Hands down, it is the one process that can take a floofy flob of string and transform it into an elegant work of art.
So regardless of how you block, I hope you will block whenever the need arises.
You’ll find that some of my patterns do best with blocking, but not all require it! Check out Mountain Song Designs on…
Oh yes, blocking is magic, and not just for lace! I'm with you on the dryer for socks and some sweaters. For example, laying my garter stitch sweaters flat to dry works okay the first couple times, but after like 3 washes, the stitches are way too stretched vertically and the garter loses its delightful squooshiness! The wet blocking makes the sweater too heavy to condense the rows back to where they were, so I'll toss it in the dryer for a timed dry on low or air dry to get it back in shape. My sweaters have a tendency to become tunics after too many washes, and I haven't figured out a good way around it without using the dryer to shrink it back to its original shape!