Growing up, I loved reading through the Peanuts comic strips. If I was at my grandparent’s house, I loved reading through the comics, and it was comforting that the first one on the page was always first on the page.
One of the most iconic characters in the comic strip was Lucy Van Pelt. The fussy and strong-willed young lady was often found calling other people unkind names, namely “blockhead.” While she meant it as an insult, I have come up with a new way to use the term “blockhead”, but not even close to the same type. Instead, I have come to love using a technique in my knitting and crochet projects that is commonly known as “blocking.”
The basic idea behind blocking is that you are helping to shape your knitted or crocheted piece into it’s proper shape. It’s not meant to change it’s size (at least not drastically) or basic shape, but rather to help define it by helping the stitches even out, resulting in a blanket or square with a much crisper shape.
Blocking can be accomplished using more than one technique. First, there is wet blocking, often done by pinning down your piece in the desired shape and then spraying until saturated, and then left to dry. The other common method of blocking involves using steam.
Today, I am blocking acrylic squares for an afghan using wet blocking. While some may argue how effective wet blocking truly is for acrylic pieces, I have been reasonably pleased with my results. However, I would like to experiment with other fibers and steam blocking and compare the difference. That, however, is a post for another day. 🙂
From what I’ve read, it seems as though most people who use wet blocking like to pin their work to their blocking board and then spray with plain water until saturated. I, however, have in the past had a hard time getting the work properly saturated by simply spraying, As a result, I choose to just go ahead and wet my piece that I’m blocking in the sink, since I have only blocked items that are small and can easily be wetted in the sink. I do believe that if you are blocking a much larger item, such as a blanket, or even a sweater, spraying would work much easier and give more even results.
After I wet my work in the sink, I like to squeeze out the excess water. I try to do this with minimal stretching, while also getting as much water out as I can (I don’t want it to take a millennia to dry). After squeezing out the excess water, I like to roll it up in a towel and squeeze again to get even more water out of my work. I want my work saturated with water, but not super wet either.
My current blocking board is nothing super fancy or exciting. At some point I would love to make a better quality one, but the corrugated box my new lamp came in works in a pinch. I can only block two squares at a time, but it works. I marked with pen on the cardboard what size I wanted to block my items to. Then, I start pinning around the edges of my wet square with pins. My regular push pins work just fine for this.
I wait for a a while, for these squares it usually takes around 3-5 hours to be dry. If you aren’t sure if your piece is 102% dry yet, just wait. Rushing it will just negate any blocking benefits that you were hoping and planning your piece would receive.
And there ya be! I tend to feel that my squares are slightly bigger than they were before blocking, but they are closer to the size I intended when I made them in the first place. Everything looks more even, and a lot less scrunchy/wrinkly/wonky. I believe that it helps my finished blanket look more finished and polished.