How to Block Your Knitting and Why You Should
As your knitting skills advance, improving your finishing techniques is crucial for confidence in wearing your handmade garments. Blocking is an impactful finishing technique, ensuring a smoother seaming experience, perfect drape, and well-defined stitches.
What is Blocking?
Blocking is the process of wetting or steaming your knitted pieces to shape and set the fabric.
Why Block Your Knits?
Blocking smooths out stitches, adjusts the finished size, and highlights lace and cable patterns. For lace, blocking opens up yarnovers to showcase the stitch pattern. It allows the yarn to bloom for cables, enhancing the cables' texture. It also evens out edges, making seaming easier. Pre-seaming blocking is recommended, followed by steaming the seams for a polished finish.
How to Block your Knitting & crochet projects
Wet Blocking:
Step 1: Soak your finished piece in water. Use a bowl for small projects or a sink for larger ones, adding a soak soap like Eucalan if desired.
Step 2: Drain and gently press out excess water without wringing.
Step 3: Roll the piece in a towel to absorb the remaining moisture.
Step 4: Assemble blocking mats and lay the piece flat. Pin it in place using a tape measure for accuracy. Blocking wires can help achieve straight edges and speed up pinning.
Step 5: Let the piece dry completely before unpinning.
Steam Blocking:
Step 1: Soak a clean cloth with water and squeeze out excess moisture. Lay it over the pinned piece and set your iron to its lowest steam setting.
Step 2: Steam the entire piece using an up-and-down motion without applying pressure. Hold the iron over each section for a few seconds.
Step 3: For light blocking, let the knitting dry. For heavier blocking, leave the cloth in place until fully dry.
Other Helpful Blocking Tips :
Block your swatch the same way you plan to block your project.
Seam pieces together after blocking.
Weave in ends after seaming.
Use a handheld steamer to relax seams post-seaming for a better lay.
My Favorite blocking Tools:
Stainless steel sewing pins
