I am of the humble opinion that blocking is not optional. Blocking is a requirement. Blocking is a must-do. Blocking should be on your bucket list. You should dream about blocking.
And honey, if you're reading this, blocking is not about sports. We're not talking blocked shots here.
Blocking is what you do after you knit something, plain and simple. It's like, brushing your teeth is what you do before bed. Blocking is what you do after knitting.
Everyone say it with me: Blocking is what you do after knitting.
Blocking makes everything look at least 50% better, and today I will prove my assertion definitively.
I knit my little B. a sweater. B. is my middle daughter, and we call her B. because when her older brother was a toddler he couldn't say the word baby, so he called her B. The name stuck.
This is the sweater before I blocked it. (And also before I put on the buttons.)
It's like a sweater-of-many-colors, an amalgamation of colorways striped together to make one whimsical cardigan.
See how it looks kind of... scrumbly, for lack of a better term?
I do like to make up adjectives. Earlier this week I made up twange. It means "a hint of something." Like, "This butter pecan ice cream has a twange of chocolate peanut butter. Who was eating out of two cartons with the same spoon again?"
Twange is pronounced like "twange."
First I washed the sweater. Then I either demonstrated my recklessness or my intelligence, depending on your point of view.
I put the sweater into the washing maching to spin the water out. This is a front loader -- not all of them have the spin cycle only options. If this is the case with your washer, do not try this at home. You don't want rinse and spin. I repeat: you do NOT want the rinse and spin option. I learned that to the tune of $800 worth of yarn once.
Putting it through the spin cycle gets about 90% of the water out, so your sweater is damp and not dripping when it comes out of the washer, like this. Many people use salad spinners for this purpose, especially since there's no risk of the spin cycle accidentally turning itself on and ruining your hard work.
When the sweater was done being washed, I spread it out on a clean white towel on the floor of a closet -- a place unlikely to get walked on by doggies and kitties and children. I prefer not to use colored towels for this purpose, just on the off chance that the towel bleeds color onto your hard work.
It still looks pretty scrumbly. What it needs is to be blocked. According to the Yarnista Dictionary, blocking means, "To make your knitting look way way better by washing it, smoothing out the garment, and allowing it to dry in its perfect state, thereby making your knitting look way way better."
So I smoothed it and tweaked it.
I know, shut up, right? Right?
This sweater was knit seamlessly from the top down with a yoke. I noticed that the button band was pulling apart slightly at the top, probably because the circumference of the sweater is so much smaller there, while the button band is the same width.
So I adjusted the button band to slightly overlap itself. Knowing that things have a tendency to shrink back once dry, the overlap helped it shrink back to the correct position of meeting nicely in the middle.
See? It's no longer scrumbly.
It ain't perfect, but it's not meant to be. It was a way for me to use up odd balls of Lindon Merino, and it's a play sweater for my B. that will match everything in her wardrobe.
There. Proof positive that blocking is absolutely, positively, unequivocally necessary. I lubs the blocking, and you should too.
Project Specs: Drive-Thru Cardigan by Wendy Bernard
Yarn: Lindon Merino, twelve colors (1 oz or so of each color, some a bit more, some less): Colleen, Ciara, Isla, Deirdre green, Deirdre, Nora, Cole Blue, Cole, Arctic Circle, Alice, Alice Pink, Emer
Needle size: US 8
Size: 4
Modifcations: 4" of length added in body and sleeves (my daughter is tall and skinny, and I wanted the sweater to fit for more than one season)
Buttons: From my grandmother's button box.
Notes: I loved this pattern, and would definitely make it again. It's a simple, easy sweater with both pullover and cardigan versions that would work well for either gender. Plus, it's graded for size 2-16, so you'll be able to make one for your kids every year if needed.