After my massive sweater debacle I've become a little more dedicated about swatching and calculating my gauge.I know that a little more work in the beginning will save me A LOT (re-knitting an entire sweater) work in the end.
This pattern runs a little large so I'm going down two needles sizes ( I knit a little loosely). I ended up with a swatch that is a little narrower than called for in the pattern gauge. I'm going to knit a size smaller than I normally wear. Sometimes sweater making is part logic and part gut feeling. I know that I would much rather have a smaller sweater I have to block out larger then a sweater I'm swimming in. I'm looking forward to casting on for this project so soon and excited to stay on top of it documenting it all!
Educate me, Oh Wise One: what exactly is blocking? I know, I should totally know this by now. From the context of the paragraph and from what I've seen in Allyson's posts, it seems to be laying flat - but is there stretching involved? Otherwise how would you get a too-small item to fit correctly?
ReplyDeleteBlocking is essentially soaking a knit project/garment in warm water (usually with some no rinse soak, I use this stuff: http://www.eucalan.com/ although there are lots of good wool washes out there)pressing the water out (lots of towels) and setting it out to try. It smooths the stitches out and makes the piece look much more polished. This really works best on natural fibers. Sometimes the blocking process can sometimes soften the knit piece so that it's not so stiff. In addition say your knit piece is slightly smaller in an area then you would like, you can pin or stretch your wet fabric so that it is the dimension you'd like. Obviously there are limitations to this, you can only block so far. But that's what we mean when we say block it aggressively out. I'd rather take a slightly knit smaller sweater and try to stretch it a little to fit me, than to have a large sweater. Things also "grow" or spread out when they are blocked (especially lace patterns!) so that is something to keep in mind when knitting things. There are lots of tutorials and explanations on blocking out there this is one of my favorite simple how tos: http://www.myzigzagstitch.com/2010/04/26/how-to-do-it-blocking-wool/
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