Masterclass
Ensure your finished knitwear looks its very best by blocking it properly. Jen Arnall-Culliford offers her expert advice
Ensure your finished projects look their best by blocking them properly
block your knitting. This instruction is often given at the end of a pattern, but what does it mean, and why should you bother? At its simplest level, blocking your knitting means to wash and dry flat. Blocking can be absolutely transformative - smoothing out imperfections in your fabric and allowing you to shape your garment as desired.
What’s the difference between a slouchy beanie and a beret? Blocking. How do you make it easier to sew seams neatly? Block the pieces. Colourwork looking a bit lumpy? Block it. Knitted a lace shawl and it looks like a hair net? Blocking will turn this caterpillar into a butterfly - so much so, that we will look at blocking lace in a separate article.
Blocking is a bit like blow-drying your hair - you can cause fabric to sit in a way that’s not completely natural. Indeed, it works in the same way - washing interferes with the hydrogen bonding between the protein chains that your hair (and wool) are made from. If you then dry your hair (or your knit) in a different configuration, the hydrogen bonds re-form to stabilise the new arrangement. The only down point is that you need to repeat the operation every time you wash it. So if your cardigan is a little bit tight, a firm blocking can make it wider, but you’ll need to do the same every time it goes through the laundry.
WASHING YOUR KNITS
You’ve cast off the last stitch and woven in your ends, so it’s time to block. The first job is to thoroughly wet your garment. Use lukewarm water - not too hot, or you may felt the yarn, and not too cold or the water won’t penetrate the fibres. A teaspoon of wool wash or shampoo added to the water helps the water to wet the knitting, with the added bonus of cleaning off any dirt that may have accumulated while you worked on the project.
Gently squeeze to remove any air pockets and ensure that the garment is completely soaked. I leave my knits in the water for about 20 minutes ( 1), so that the fibres have a chance to fully relax, but many consider this to be unnecessary. Once your project is completely soaked, carefully remove it from the water. The wool will be weaker whilst it is wet, so take care to gather up the whole piece, not allowing it to stretch under its own weight ( 2). Wool can absorb about a third of its weight in water, and combined with the weakening of bonds between fibres it’s all too easy to over-stretch. This is why instructions always say not to wring out or twist your wet knitting. Instead, you should gently squeeze to remove most of the excess water. To dry the garment further, either press it between two towels, or place it in a gentle spin cycle on your washing machine for 5-10 minutes.
BLOCKING SWEATERS AND CARDIGANS
You will need an area away from potential dangers such as animals or small children, where you have space to lie your garment flat until it is completely dry. Ideally this should be on a surface into which you can pin. I use a thick, clean towel over our carpet, but you can also use a bed or foam blocking mats.
Lay your sweater flat, and spend some time ensuring that the measurements are correct. If your cardigan has buttons already, then do them up. If not, ensure that the bands are lying over each other to emulate how you intend to wear the cardigan (if it should button all the way down, then the bands need to be overlapped all the way down). Move the fabric so that the hem lies straight, with the sides folded neatly along the columns of shaping (if there is shaping). Check that both sleeves are angled evenly, and that the two sleeves are the same length (little differences can easily be tweaked here, by gently stretching one if required).
If there is any colourwork, use your fingertips to flatten and generally primp the stitches. Run your eye over any design features, and ensure that where relevant, they are symmetrical. If there is an edging, make sure that it is lying flat (or stand it up if that’s what’s required!). For folded collars, arrange them as you want them to be worn. If patterning such as a colourwork yoke is continuing from one side of a cardigan front to the other, line it up neatly across both fronts.
If your sweater isn’t already conforming to the measurements provided in the schematic, you may wish to gently stretch it (it’s more tricky to make a garment smaller…). In this case, you will either need lots of pins, or a set of blocking wires and pins. There is a limit to how much you can stretch a garment without damaging it, and each yarn type and stitch pattern will vary. As long as you go slowly and take care, you should be able to add an inch or more without any trouble. Start on one side, and either thread a wire up the side seam, or place plenty of pins, so that when you stretch the sweater, you don’t end up with a scalloped side edge! Then measure across to give the width you require and using either a wire again or pins, gently tug the garment to the desired size and pin firmly in place. Double-check that hems are still straight and that the rest of the garment is still lying correctly, then leave it to dry fully before unpinning.
JUMPER BOARDS
In Shetland, the most common method of blocking sweaters is to use a jumper board. This is a wooden frame that allows you to firmly stretch out a sweater to desired dimensions. They are usually adjustable for height and width. Sweaters are washed as normal, and then stretched onto the frame and allowed to dry. This works particularly well with Fair Isle designs worked in wool, and gives fantastically smooth fabric.
BLOCKING ACCESSORIES
To block accessories, follow the same instructions for washing as described opposite. Then there are a few special methods of blocking that you can use.
HATS
Depending on the shape that you wish to achieve, hats can be blocked in a number of ways. For a beret or tam-style of hat, stretch the damp hat over a dinner plate (or other suitable disc-shaped form) of the correct diameter. If you would like your hat to be particularly stretched, you can thread a strong cotton yarn through the ribbing or brim and pull it tight and tie. This can help prevent the brim overstretching, which could lead to a hat that doesn’t stay on!
For a beanie-shaped hat, you can simply lay it flat to dry, but you’ll get a more pleasing finished shape if you dry the hat over a head-shaped form. You can purchase traditional wooden hat forms that are absolutely beautiful, but it’s just as easy to use a balloon. Inflate a round balloon to the desired head circumference and tie it shut. Then simply pull the hat on over the balloon and leave it to dry. If you aren’t keen on balloons, then you can stuff your hat to the required circumference
using plastic bags - just be sure to avoid any unsightly lumps and bumps. As with sweaters, it’s well worth taking the time to smooth any colourwork and ensure that cables or other motifs are lying correctly and evenly. MITTENS AND GLOVES While mittens and gloves can easily be shaped as you wear them, it is nice to be able to present them looking their best if you are making them as a gift! This is where a blocker can come in handy.
Mitten and glove blockers are simple to make from a thin sheet of plastic (such as the cheap table mats available from Ikea), or from cardboard covered in sticky tape or sticky-backed plastic. Measure your hand circumference above your thumb, and divide this length in two. This is your hand width. For mittens and the palm of gloves, cut two strips as wide as the hand width and longer than you’d want your mittens or gloves (approximately 9cm x 25cm would be a good starting point). Trim the top end of the strips to give a curve and avoid sharp corners to catch on your knitting.
Measure your thumb circumference, and divide it in half to give the thumb width. Again, cut two strips as wide as the thumb width, and longer than your thumb, trimming the tops to a curve. For mittens you now have all you need. For gloves, continue cutting strips for your fingers in the same way - it may be worth labelling your little fingers and your thumbs separately with a permanent marker. The index, middle and ring fingers are likely to be similar sizes and it’s not normally necessary to differentiate them. Each strip should be longer than required.
To use the blockers, carefully poke the thumb strip into the thumb of the mitten or glove. Shape the fabric around the blocker so that it’s lying correctly. For gloves, insert the finger strips into each finger. The benefit of the strips all being separate is that it makes it easier to manipulate them into the glove! Once all the fingers are neat, you simply pop the hand part into the glove or mitten and allow it to dry completely. SOCKS As with mittens and gloves, most of the time you can wash your socks and then just wear them to shape. They are usually designed with some negative ease so that they don’t fall down, and as such will stretch nicely on the foot as they are worn. Once again, though, if you want to take pretty photographs of your socks, of if they are intended as a gift, blocking them over a suitable sock form can transform the appearance of the sock leaving the needles.
There are a number of styles of sock blockers available to purchase - bespoke wooden sock blockers, stainless steel hanger-like sock blockers, and plastic sock blockers being the most common. However, as with mitten blockers, it’s relatively easy to make your own from a thin sheet of plastic, and there are many online tutorials that will show you how to measure your feet to make exactly the correct size.
Careful blocking can help to even out many imperfections in your knitting, and is well worth taking time over. Do write and let us know if you have a favourite blocking technique!