Tag Archives: blocking

Blocking day

Posted on January 13, 2022 | 11 comments

I gave a talk for the Windy City Knitters Guild the other night (brioche, and a little quick start project), so I had to wait to block my new wrap. I didn’t want to have this lying on the floor behind me. I like to pretend my studio is all tidy when I’m on Zoom. Don’t look to the right or left! Also, if you’re interested in having me speak for your guild, let me know.

I may have been suckered while knitting the wrap. It felt much smaller than the previous one while I was knitting, so I decided to knit as long as the yarn held out. But it relaxed when I soaked it and laid it out. I know, it’s superwash, so it will bounce back a lot as it dries since I’m not pinning it to hold a shape. We’ll see what the final numbers are. Keeping careful records to note in the new pattern.

I blocked the slip striped socks, too. Just because I’m not publishing a pattern for them, doesn’t mean I can’t use them! They’re warm and lovely. I just didn’t think they were zen enough to justify the pattern.

I’m dreaming of my next design project, but it hasn’t settled into itself yet. Lots of ideas floating around in my head, but the path isn’t clear yet. We shall see!

11 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged blocking, blockingismagic

Second chance knitting

Posted on December 7, 2018 | 5 comments

One of the things that I love about knitting is that you can always tweak it if it’s not exactly the way you want it.

When I first knit my carbon/pollen version of my Lucky Star shawl, I knit 9 repeats of the edging, and decided it was too much. I didn’t want the bright edging to overwhelm the shawl. I ripped it back to five repeats, and deemed it perfect.

And it was. Fresh off the blocking wires, it was just the way I wanted it.

But this very bouncy, round Knitted Wit Victory Sock yarn relaxed a bit, making the edging a little shorter than I anticipated.

So I tinked the dark carbon bind off, and added two more repeats of the lace edging for a total of 7 repeats.

Each row is about 450 stitches, so I’m adding 3600 stitches. Piece o’ cake.

Binding off…again!

Now I just have a few extra ends to sew in. *After* I re-block. I could sew before blocking, but I never clip the ends until after, anyway. I don’t want the ends to pop through when I block my shawls. Since I don’t want to handle the ends twice, I just wait and take care of it all after blocking.

Do you sew your ends before or after blocking? And have you ever tinked a bind off to lengthen or shorten a piece of knitting? (Are you as fussy as I am?)

5 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged blocking, Lucky Star shawl

Blocking is magic! As ever…

Posted on July 8, 2017 | 6 comments

I just bound off my Go Tell the Bees shawlette, KAL version. It’s blocking in the shade of the bamboo in the backyard.

So pretty! I’m using flexible Inspinknity Ultra-Fine Blocking Wires for the top curve, and pinning out each point. I measure to make sure the points are the same length as they are paired (center two, next two out, etc). I suppose I could run a wire around the pointy edge, too, but if I’m measuring out each point, it seems like it would be redundant.

I love how quickly blocking dries outside. But precautions are necessary.

I have a piece of screen door mesh over my shawlette. Why? Once upon a time, a bird pooped on my blocking. Lesson learned.

This should be dry in a couple hours. By then, I’ll have another shawl bound off, and hope to block that this afternoon. Progress!

What’s your summer knitting?

6 Comments

Posted in KAL, Knit

Tagged blocking, Go Tell the Bees, Go Tell the Bees KAL

Inspinknity Blocking Wires Review

Posted on April 6, 2016 | 12 comments

I bought some Inspinknity blocking wires a few months ago, in anticipation of.blocking my Twin Leaf Crescent. I had knit two of these before (one prototype, one FO) and had not loved the blocking process.

Scallops are hard to block! Last time I used straight blocking wires across the top, and three pins in each scallop to try to avoid a point. It was not fun trying to get all those scallops pinned out.

This time, I used straight wires across the top again.

The Inspinknity wires come in two weights, and I went with the ultra-thin wires, which are meant for lace. I threaded the Inspinknity wires along the edge of my scallops, right where the reverse stockinette edge meets the stockinette leaf. This gave me a continuous edge to pull out with pins.

It was the easiest scalloped pin out ever! The wire kept the pinning from making things to pointy, although I did use 2 pins per scallop to get the desired shape. The high points between the scallops bounced up and were easy to place, too.

These wires are memory wire, and they’ll take whatever shape you pin out. When you’re done, they bounce back to straight. They’re stored as circles to save space. I’m hooked! Or pinned. I’ll be using these again.

I knit this shawl with yarn from the frogged prototype which had been wet blocked before. I didn’t try to get the kinks out of the yarn before reknitting. My stockinette looked a little wonky before blocking, and I hoped it would block out.

It didn’t all even up. For some reason, it doesn’t show as much in the lace section.

I’ve re-knit a lot of yarn before, but not necessarily after wet blocking. On chunkier yarns, I don’t think it matters as much. But for this fine, smooth fingering weight, it would have been better to re-skein, soak, and hang it to straighten it out before re-using. Live and learn! I’m not frogging to re-knit again. I’m just going to call it character, or prosecco bubbles.

Do you use blocking wires? I’m in love with these!

12 Comments

Posted in KAL, Knit, pattern design

Tagged blocking, inspinknity, twin leaf crescent

Meander Cowl with Delicious Yarns Two Sweets

Posted on January 8, 2016 | 13 comments

I just finished this cowl and I don’t want to take it off, ever. It’s delicious!

I’ve named it Meander, because the zigazagging lace and cables do a nice walkabout, and the accent color meanders through the whole thing even more. The lace makes it airy enough that it’s not too warm, and it looks pretty, too.

I knit this with a new to me yarn from Delicious Yarns. The premise is pretty fun: Lots of fiber, no calories, delicious! This is the sport weight version of Two Sweets (2 color accents); the colorway is Chocolate Mix 3. I wish I had thought to take a picture of it before winding, but I wound it before going to Hawaii as “just in case” knitting. I didn’t know what it wanted to be yet, and didn’t get to it until this week.

Here’s a skein of of their fingering weight yarn in Sprinkles (Superwash Merino with little pops of color on a natural background). I bought it to coordinate with the sport weight, thinking that my yarn at home was fingering, but it’s not. So I’ll either return it or save it for another day. The sport weight has spoken, and spoken well indeed. This is a loop cowl, 52 inches long, blocked. Pattern coming soon; it’s at the tech editor now. It would be nice in a semisolid color, too, but the meandering of the accent color adds a bit of fun.

First time I’ve ever used the pano feature of my iPad to photograph knitting, but I couldn’t fit the whole thing in any other way!

Does your yarn tell you what it wants to be? Or is it less bossy than mine? I’ve had this yarn since June, and it finally spoke up!

13 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged blocking, Delicious Yarns, Meander Cowl, Two Sweets

Blocking, belatedly

Posted on November 22, 2015 | 3 comments

I recently found this sweater at the back of my closet, mostly unworn. I finished this Heather Hoodie at Crafty Moms weekend in February 2011. It was designed as a vest, and I adapted it to include sleeves, because a jacket makes more sense to me than a bulky vest. This is one big bulky sweater, 9.5 skeins of Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky, which means 950 grams, or 33.25 ounces, or nearly two pounds. I think it felt too chunky for me to want to wear it often.

I recently blocked my Edin cardi. I wore it yesterday, and I’m completely happy with it. It’s a perfect fit. The fabric relaxed a bit and it feels like I’m wearing a cloud. Modeled pic someday!

But it gave me a brainstorm: What if I could get the monster cables on this Heather Hoodie to relax a bit, too? I just looked up the Ravelry page to get the link, and it says, “The cable pattern pulls in as you knit, but will relax upon blocking.” I can’t believe I never blocked it, but it was knit at a time before I became a blocking evangelist. Into the sink it went. It soaked up so much water (and ran some excess dye, too), it was really heavy when I hauled it out. I couldn’t just roll it in a towel and expect to get most of the water out, so I put it in my washing machine on delicate and spun it for 30 seconds at a time, rearranging often so it couldn’t stretch out.

blocking

I patted it out to size, and immediately it felt smoother, nicer, more relaxed. The cables no longer pull in. Blocking is magic. Three days later, it’s finally dry, and it fits so much better. What? Two new (ish) sweaters to wear this season?

I’m feeling empowered. Maybe I should rip back the almost complete first sleeve on my abandoned Honey cardigan and make them the way I want them (fitted, not belled), and then I’d have three new sweaters…

Go me!

3 Comments

Posted in Knit, yarn

Tagged blocking, Edin, heather hoodie, honey cardigan

Swatching and blocking, yarn and ice cream

Posted on July 23, 2015 | 7 comments

Do you always swatch? Do you always wash and block your swatches? True confessions time here: I don’t always swatch, and when I do, I don’t always wash and block it. This has come back to bite me several times. Lesson learned! I’ve modified my approach: If the yarn is familiar to me, I might dive right in. A new yarn? It’s best to do my homework.

This is Knit Picks Galileo in a deliciously plummy color called Urchin. It reminds me of these shield urchins I saw last December.

But I digress.

This ia a new to me yarn. It’s sport weight, a 50/50 blend of Merino and Bamboo viscose. Two ply. It’s deliciously bouncy and round to knit with. Occasionally I’ll split the yarn with the Hiya Hiya Sharps that I’m knitting with, but I want that pointy tip for the lace stitches I’m working. It’s a reasonable trade-off.

The ballband recommends a size US 3-5 needle. I started with a 7, just for grins, because it’s going to be lace. Definitely too floppy. I swatched with a 6, and it felt pretty good, but I thought I’d push the envelope and swatch with a 5, too. It felt a little full on the needle, but surprise! It was my favorite of the three blocked swatches. It relaxed a lot from the bouncy knitted piece, but it also had more of the structure it needed to make this lace behave. So glad I swatched AND blocked in this instance. I’ve been knitting like crazy, and I’m halfway done with the project. No pictures; it’s a secret for now.

Speaking of plummy, my friends offered me plums from their super-productive tree again this year. I picked two colanders full, which was enough for two batches of jam.

I thought I’d come up with my perfect plum jam last summer. That was before I had some plum bourbon jam on a mini-doughnut at Pip’s Original Doughnuts. And over the year I’d also decided that I like a more traditional pectin set for plum jam. (Pomona’s is still my go-to for strawberry, and no pectin at all for raspberry.)

After the first batch, I went for the trifecta of favorite things: Plum, bourbon, crystallized ginger. Heaven. Not particularly boozy, but a extra depth of flavor that plain plum jam doesn’t have.

Notes for myself:

6 cups chopped plums
1/4 c water
Bring to boil, simmer 5 minutes. Add 1 box Sure-Jell pectin for less sugar (pink box) mixed with 1/4 cup sugar. Bring to boil.

Add
4.5 cups sugar
1/4 cup bourbon
1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

Boil 1 minute per pectin package drections, water bath process for 10 minutes (sea level).

Yum.

I must be an extravagant measurer, or maybe I should re-measure my plums after the first simmer, which I don’t, but I always end up with a bit more jam than I’m expecting. I can only process 8 jars with my stockpot/orange silicone trivet setup, and that’s my expected yield. Maybe it’s the added bourbon, ginger, water? Anyway, the extra jam goes into a jar and into the fridge. I had extras from 2 batches in the fridge, so I did this.

Plum bourbon jam ice cream. It was a good reason to use the ice cream maker the kids gave to me a couple years ago. And they were coming for dinner!

Tastes as good as it looks!

Inspired by Erica’s recipe, but I doubled it and adjusted it for sweetness:

2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup plum bourbon jam
up to 1/4 cup sugar, to taste

Mix milk, cream, jam. Taste! Adjust sweetness as desired. Process in ice cream maker 25-30 minutes. This is a soft set; I put the ice cream in a storage container in the freezer for a couple hours before serving for a firmer set. Delicious. In a perfect world I might make a custard base for a smoother texture, but that would mean more work. I wonder if I’d like it with half and half instead of cream? This is like swatching, with food! But I’m guessing that laziness will win out, and this simple version is probably how it will always happen at my house.

I think this would be spectacular with strawberry balsamic jam, with some additional sugared strawberries thrown in. Just sayin’.

So, extravagant swatching, blocking, measuring, eating! What is your extravagance this summer?

7 Comments

Posted in foodies!, Knit, pattern design, recipe, yarn

Tagged blocking, jam ice cream, knit picks galileo, plum jam, swatching

Pink…yarn, wine, and a PDX bridge ramble

Posted on July 17, 2015 | 4 comments

I’ve just bound off and blocked a new design project.

Such pretty leftovers! And they kind of go with my wine.

I’ve loved every moment of knitting with this gorgeous gradient kit from Black Trillium Fibres. It’s Lilt, an 85/15 superwash merino/silk blend. Very nice. I’ve been intrigued by gradients recently, but this was my very first adventure with one. I’ll be back for more.

It’s a gorgeous day for blocking outdoors. And after my bird poop blocking incident, I’ve devised a way to protect my knits. I can’t show you what I’m blocking, but here’s the scoop.

I had a roll of this fiberglass screen material in my basement. Once upon a time, I was going to make simple screens to put in our casement windows when they were open. Long story short, it never happened, and then we replaced all the windows a few years ago. (54 windows. Ouch. Love the new ones.) So I cut off a piece and laid it over my blocking project. I put a few extra pins in the project to hold the screen up above it, and a few more pins to hold down the corners. Perfect! And no bird pooped on it…this time.

Steel, Broadway, Fremont Bridges

We’re having a very lovely summer in Portland. I walked the downtown bridge loop with a friend the other morning. It’s 2.7 miles from the Hawthorne Bridge to the Steel Bridge on the East Side Esplanade, over the Steel, along Waterfront Park on the west side, and back over the Hawthorne.

Play me!

A picture perfect day. And we also took a little side trip to see the new Tillikum Crossing bridge, which is scheduled to open September 12. It’s for pedestrians, bicycles, and light rail. No cars. So pretty.

Yellow plums are ripe; there will be some plum bourbon jam in my near future. What’s on your needles or in your kitchen this summer?

4 Comments

Posted in Knit, Portland area fun, yarn

Tagged black trillium fibres, blocking, bridges, Lilt, PDX

Blocking: A cautionary tale

Posted on June 17, 2015 | 7 comments

You know I’m a big believer in blocking hand knits. It makes such a difference in the finished piece.

I love blocking my knits outdoors in the summer. Last month, just before TNNA, I finished my second Summertime Blues and took advantage of the very fine weather to block it in the back yard. And for the first time ever, a bird pooped on my knitting. Crap! And I do mean crap. I spot cleaned it, but there was a definite stain. No time to wash and re-block, so I wore it anyway. It was clean, just spotty!

Today I washed and re-blocked, but no luck. I think the sun baked it in. It’s small, not too noticeable (there are some darker dye spots in this semi-solid, but they’re blue, not greenish), and it’s on the back, at least the way I wear it.

So there you have it. Did I block it outdoors today? You betcha! What are the odds that it would happen again? I think I just dodged a bullet there!

Speaking of blocking, I’m teaching Blocking, It’s Magic this summer and fall:
Twisted in Portland, Saturday July 11, 2:30 p.m.
Wool ‘n’ Wares in West Linn, Saturday August 1, 2 p.m.
Twisted in Portland, Monday August 31, 5:30 p.m.

And I’m doing a short presentation on blocking for the Tigard Knitting Guild on August 20, 7 p.m.

Clearly, I’m a blocking evangelist! Do you block your knits?

7 Comments

Posted in classes, Knit

Tagged blocking, knit blocking, summertime blues

Upcoming classes, and catching up the blog

Posted on April 29, 2015 | 1 comment

It’s been super busy here since I came home from Port Ludlow, Edmonds, Ellensburg. I feel like there’s a mega-post about that road trip that needs to happen, but I haven’t had a chance to process it yet. So I’m going to jump ahead and let you know what’s going on now, and then work backwards. We’ll pretend it’s ballroom dancing or something…

May is shaping up to be a busy month. I’m doing a workshop for the Tigard Knitting Guild on May 9. We’re going to play with mosaic slipped stitch knitting. In the morning we’ll learn how it works, and in the afternoon we’ll design something with it! This is such a great way to play with color, but we only use one color per row. No carrying, no floats.

On May 16, I’ll be down in Salem teaching at Tangled Purls. I’m teaching two classes. The first is Blocking: It’s Magic from 10 to noon.

In the afternoon I’m teaching beginning stranded colorwork with the Kerfuffle Cowl from 1:30 TO 4 p.m. Contact the shop to register for either of these.

I’ll also have my trunk show there all day! We’ll have a meet and greet between classes, so come take a class or just say hello.

I’ve been knitting like mad this month. I’m working with Knitted Wit’s new Targhee Shimmer yarn, 80/20 Targhee/silk in DK and worsted weights. The wool is sourced 100% sheep to skein in the USA. I designed a Criss Cross Cowl in Kiss and Teal (to go with the Criss Cross mitts and hat and beret) with the worsted, pattern coming soon. This color is amazing, but it doesn’t photograph well. In real life, it’s a very rich aquamarine, like a deep blue-green emerald.

I knit a pair of Pointer Mitts with the DK, in Liberally Bleeding Heart.

These are going to TNNA, the The National Needlearts Association trade show at the end of May. There will also be a Pointer cap to go with the mitts, but a sample knitter is doing that one for me. And a Sophie’s Rose Shawlette in Knitted Wit’s Single Fingering, in Enchanted Forest and Salted Caramel which I’m not knitting, but I’ll block it. Thank goodness for sample knitters!

I’ve also been diligently knitting on my Tilt Shift KAL project. Two skeins down, one left to go. This is very relaxing knitting for me, because it’s 80% stockinette. I’ve been reading a lot of blogs and watching TV with it. The KAL has been going on all month, and should be wrapping up this week.

I don’t know that I’ll have mine done by then, because I have a design project to finish before TNNA which is higher priority because it has a deadline. Click, click, click…

I also blocked my Fern Shawlette that I knit for my previous KAL. Finally! You’ll note that I’m artfully hiding the ends I have yet to sew in.

In my spare time (ha!) my friends Carole, Suzanne, and I put on a tea for 60 on Saturday. Planning, shopping, cooking, plating, serving. And no pictures of the event; I was too busy kitchen wenching. But Sue from Tango Mango came and did a presentation with her collection of vintage purses, which was very cool. Here are just a few.

Note the floral detail at the bottom.

And then there was an Earth Day event on Sunday that required folding some origami cranes, among other things…

I’ll do a report on the Strung Along Retreat soon. It was great. But I have to wash and block my little swatches from Clara Parkes’ class before I can blog it!

What have you been up to while I’ve been away?

1 Comment

Posted in classes, KAL, Knit

Tagged blocking, classes, criss cross, earth day, kerfuffle, knitted wit, origami, road trips, tea, tigard knitting guild