@wool_mage

6 months ago

To the person who asked about what blocking a sweater does: (and I assuming Wool/animal fibers are being used) First a definition of blocking. When it comes to sweater knitting, "blocking" doesn't always actually mean a "hard block". Depending on the pattern, blocking may simply be refering to soaking, removing excess water, and laying flat to dry. In a wash and lay flat meaning of blocking, It will even out your stiches. Nothing crazy, but the nature of hand knits is variation. This will even out in wash. When laying the sweater flat, you are just putting it into an even looking sweater position. If you are knitting a lace pattern or a cable pattern, you may need to "hard block" the sweater. The nature of this type of knitting creates a fabric that needs to be stretched out to see its full beauty. Soaking, pinning out to size, and hard blocking, will create the finished desired look of the sweater. You will not constantly need to "reblock" when you do a full soak/wash of a sweater. Usually, the standard, soak/lay flat and sort of "smoosh" it into a general sweater shape is PLENTLY. It's unusual, imo, to need to Hard block a sweater (if knit correctly and has already been hard blocked) every single time you soak wash it. I like Taylor, but I disagree with her answer. I think it makes knitting sweaters and upkeep sound far more taxing/complicated than it should be.

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