since bobbi (expert knitter; friend; project manager of this sweater) has instilled the fear of god in me if i don't PROPERLY gauge my new sweater, i'm going the full nine in terms of prep work. in addition to blocking my swatch, i also thought that i should do something about the color-fastness of my dark navy yarn, which will be striped with my much-lighter camel colored yarn. (this sweater turning into a muddled colored blog is probably actually a bigger concern of mine than this stupid swatch.)
after some brief internet research, i amassed my materials.
* 1/4 cup of salt
* 1/2 cup of vinegar
* 4 cups of hot water
* bowl
first, you need to be working with a skein of yarn...not a ball or this won't work (a ball is too tight). luckily for me, knit picks packaged this one up already as a skein. also, don't do this with wool! only with cotton. apparently the hot water will cause the wool to felt.
then i dissolved the salt & vinegar in the hot water, put in my skein of cotton in, soaked for 20 minutes, rinsed. then because i didn't want to smell like a bag of salt & vinegar potato chips, i quickly gave it a soak in wool-lite, and a final rinse. then set it out to dry. honestly, this literally took me 5 minutes to put together...and after seeing almost no color come out of this dark blue yarn, i'm feeling pretty reassured.
while all of this was going on, i also blocked my swatch. before that, i took crazy measurements of the pre-blocked swatch and got my pre-blocked gauge. then soaked it a bit hear in some wool-lite, rinsed it out and pinned it out with some T-pins. i'm so proud of myself for being so thorough and not cheating my way through this sweater!
7 comments:
i made a test gauge on my sweater project, but didn't block it :{
whoa! good for you! i've never blocked anything before but your page has inspired me to give it a go- im crocheting a cardigan and have already seamed a side. is it ok to block after seaming (when everything is put together), or do i have to block the individual pieces (body,sleeves,etc) then seam them together???
by the way, i just LOVE your jadeite piece!
@evelyn & flora - blocking is so great! especially if you're using wool, it makes everything looks sooo nice and drapey. i think you're supposed to block individual pieces if possible because you have more control over each one. that said, you can always block your pieces after you've worn them a few times and need to get them back into shape...
very nice work! so, can i ask...how much different was your preblocked gauge compared to your post blocked gauge?
also, won't it take forever for that skein of cotton to dry?
i have to admit that i'm rarely this meticulous with regard to pre-work of my project, which is likely why i have so many ill fitting garmets!
i can't wait to see the finished sweater! happy stitches!
hi beth - thanks!! i'm pretty proud of myself too...this thing better be perfect ;)
pre and post blocked gauge was actually really different! i went from a CO of 160 to 138........which makes a huge difference. preblocked 4" = 15.67 and postblocked 4" = 13.67" (yes, that's right, i'm using 2 decimal places).
and yeah, the skein did take forever. and i started getting worried that i'd end up with sour yarn. so, i started this horrible process of unraveling into a pile, letting it dry, moving it to a ball, then unraveling more to dry. i think a better solution is unwrapping your entire skein around the legs of your chair to let it dry.
Interesting. I shrink everything knit so my 10 year old neighbor has some really nice sweaters of mine ;)
I work in cotton a lot and really need to start doing this! I love your blog by the way, I've been following you for a little while now and everything you post is so inspirational! :)
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