Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Blocking Tip


Warning:  not every project is appropriate for this technique.  Think before you block.

That final shawl for 2015 donating was giving me blocking fits.  Actually the issue was drying - or rather not drying on the time schedule I needed.  Yes, the knitting should not have been put off until the last minutes.  Lesson learned.

The drying issue was of my own making.  I picked up the "fold in half" tip from my daughter and lined every thing up.  The top garter edge wanted to be put on a blocking wire for straightness.  The bottom edge - the one with the mitered garter triangles was playing nice and behaving properly.  One wire plus some patting and mushing (technical blocking term) and I turned my back on the thing planning on just an hour of drying time. 

Guess what happens when you put wet wool - even superwash wool - on a towel that wicks away some of the water and then holds it nice and cool and wet?  Wet towel under two layers of damp wool does not dry as fast as you expect. 

NOTE:  Watched wet wool never dries. 

Remember that part about the bottom edge playing nice?  Well, it finally hit my thinking brain cell that I could suspend the wire across the knobs of an upper cabinet and let both sides dry.

Lickety split air drying.  No wonder my mother hung all the laundry out on a clothes line to dry.

Everything old is new again.

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