Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Swatching and blocking

Blocking is essential in lace knitting and it's always amazing to see the huge change it causes.
Ofcourse some people like to block their lace more than others just as some patterns call for a lot of blocking and some less.
The Spring Shawl Surprise needs quite a bit of blocking and you will actually use it to mould parts of the pattern. Once you start knitting you will all see what I mean.
Below is my Swatch One before and after blocking. Notice how the blocking has flattened the knitting and opened and streched the yarn overs to different sizes. This is what you should aim for when you block your swatch. If you find the swatch gets too big with this much blocking you may consider going down in needle size -or accept a bigger shawl (you will then need more yarn).


Dimensions after blocking: 14 x 12 cm (4,7" x 5,5"). Yarn: Knit Picks bare merino 800m/100g (880yards/100g). Needles: 3½mm. I am a pretty loose knitter.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Lul!
Your swatch shows pretty good, how the blocking can fresh up the look of stitches and the quality of the yarn! - Thanks for showing!
Looking forward to surprise...
Ixe

Anna said...

Thank you very much for including the size for your blocked swatch - it is very helpful!
I cannot wait for knit-along to start!
Anna

Peggy said...

Great blocking instructions. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for showing your swatch...
I'm near to be ready to start, I choice the yarn and I read the instructions...
My god, it's not the same signs ! my poor mind !
a new challenge..; thanks .. I love that !

Tally said...

Thanks for posting these two pictures. That really helps.

Did you measure the 14 cm for width for the whole piece or just for the inside pattern.
Same question for the heigh. Do the 12 cm include the 3 bottom and 3 top rows?

Greetings to Aarhus
:-Tally-:

(a reason to get inrolled into my first surprise/Kal is that you are living there and I've spent non-countable holidays in Juetland as a child and as a teenager.)

LUL said...

Tally, I have included the border in garter stitches. But remember Jen's swatch is smaller and it's her gauge we use for calculation the amount of yarn needed. If you go for a size like mine you will need more yarn and the shawl will get bigger.
Good to hear you have nice memories of Denmark :-)