More Catch-Up

Last month -- in March, actually -- I crocheted two afgan squares to contribute to a gift blanket by a group to a person whom we "excessively admire," to put it in Jane Austen terms. Today, I finally got around to steam-blocking them, and took a few shots of the process, which I'll outline here. This only really works if your pieces have straight edges and square corners, and I'm pre-supposing you have an iron that shoots steam. I'm steam blocking these squares, instead of wet-blocking them, because they are made from wool-acrylic blends, and because it's easier to pin to a straight line when your square is dry.

1. Get a piece of that pattern-copying tissue that you see at fabric stores -- the kind with a one inch square grid printed on it. Get out a pile of pins, and you will find it easier if your pins have big, decorative heads, or if they're T-pins. Lay out your grid on your ironing board, and have your pins ready.  Pre-heat your iron to the setting that will send out the steam jets.

2. Pin the afgan square to the finished size, using the grid squares as a guide. Pin down the corners first, and then go back through and pin the square down at one-inch intervals, following the straight lines. If you need to pin it more often, do so. There are no pin police to stop you, and there is no prize for blocking with the least amount of pins.

3. Hover your hot iron over your square. Do not do not do not iron right on the square. That will flatten out your stitches and remove any texture you worked so hard to put into it. Shoot the steam on your square until it is hot and damp. Do this a couple of times, and then turn your iron off and walk away.  Here, I'm hovering -- can you tell?

4. When your square is cool and dry to the touch, unpin it. It should remain the size that you pinned it to. If it doesn't, re-pin it and repeat the process until it does. This picture shows the square with half of its pins removed, and it stayed exactly where I pinned it.

 

As you can see, there is no need to Fear the Blocking!

If you don't have a steam iron, you can put a heavily dampened towel over your pinned square and iron on that until your square is damp and hot. Don't press down, but just gently glide your iron over the towel very lightly. When the towel stops steaming, take it off and let your square get cool and dry.  I tried this with my second square and it worked equally well, without the hovering.

Knitting happened last night! I guess I'm pretty suggestible, because I got out my Pi Shawl last night and knitted on it as long as I could concentrate, which wasn't very long. I'd love to start some more projects, but I really do need to finish a couple of things I already have on the needles, like the Jupiter Cardigan. In the past autumn and winter, I wanted to wear it a bunch of times, but you can't wear something that isn't knitted yet.

Note to self: you do not need any more hats, scarves, or cowls.

There! I just put the Pi Shawl back in its bag, and got out Jupiter and placed it handy and ready to be picked up and knit. There's an extra ball of yarn that has been wound and is ready to use, so that I can't use ball-winding as an excuse for not working on it. I'll come back later and report on whether that helped me make any progress.

next morning: Yep, did two whole rows on Jupiter.  At this rate, I'll have the body finished before midsummer.  Sheesh.