The Sweatshop of Love Blog

My mom got me the Knit Picks Blocking Mats for my birthday a few weeks ago! I had my eye on these for years, and have been using towels laying all over my house to block on since I started knitting.

My Stack of New Blocking Mats

One of the main reasons I wanted to get these mats is because I thought they’d attract my cats less than towels always do. I swear my cats lay in wait for me to block things because they are only truly happy when they are sleeping on wet towels.

Velma Scoping it Out

Velma, the smart one, was the first to check it out. She took a few minutes to sniff around, but lost interest quickly.

Pudge Testing the Water

Pudge really wanted to make this work! She is usually the one sleeping on the wet sweaters the most, so once Velma walked away she was all over it.

Pudge Giving Up!

But it just wasn’t the same! She walked around the sweater and the blocking mats for another few minutes, but ended up leaving, too. It was fantastic! No yarn pulls, no messed up sweater, no wet cat hair! And the sweater dried overnight, and even though it’s cotton, the sweater is worsted cotton! Overnight drying is still pretty damn good.

So I’m in love with my blocking mats! Thanks mom!

… and y’all can just go ahead and ignore that sweater drying on that mat. There is nothing to see here.

Bumpy Lace Pattern

Wavy Front Panel

In the Girl Friday pattern she says that the lace pattern blocks out really well, and the few people who have finished it and posted it on ravelry have said the same thing, so I thought it would be another great example of a blocking before and after.

These two pictures are of Girl Friday before I blocked it. The sleeves are a tiny bit short and small. The front is very wavy and smaller than the sweater itself, and the lace pattern is bubbled. The sweater itself is shorter than what I was aiming for.

Was I worried? Of course not! I know the amazing powers of blocking.

(Honestly I was a little worried about the front. It was much shorter than the sweater, very wavy, and I thought I was going to have to take it out and bind it off using an even looser bind off than I already did.)

DRUM ROLL!!

Pretty Lace!

Perfect Sleeves!

Hello, perfect sweater I knit. How are you? My name is Allyson and I’m going to wear you ALL THE TIME!

The sleeves stretched out perfectly, width-wise and length-wise. The lace pattern calmed down and isn’t bumpy at all anymore! The entire sweater itself stretched out to a really nice length, and, most importantly, the front is perfect! Not wavy at all and the same length as the sweater.

So I made some modifications to the pattern, but not many of them.

I’ve been saying that I knit the  body all in one piece, which I think turned out really well.

I held the top stitches, from the fronts and back, and did a three needle bind off for the shoulders and just picked those stitches up when I picked stitches up for the collar, instead of binding off then picked up bound off stitches.

I only did the collar short rows for about an inch, because I didn’t want the collar to fold over.

And I used a k2tog bind off, because I thought a stretchy bind off would be too much, but the regular bind off would be too tight. It worked out great!

My cats, though, want to eat this yarn! I had to beat them off the thing while I was blocking it because they were literally trying to chew threw the sweater. I had this problem with the yarn itself, too! I kept having to tie pieces of it back together that they had chewed through. I used the Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool! It’s wool! And they didn’t do this with my Vogue Cropped Jacket.

So, I have to keep it in a vault, but other than that I’m in love. It’s so cute and simple looking, I will be able to throw it over anything. Dress it up or down. Basically it’s the perfect sweater!

And now, present knitting. For the rest of the year, Allyson. I’m serious now.

I finished knitting my mom’s Glorified Necklace! It’s not officially done; I’ve got to hide the tails and block it, but I’ve never knit two of the exact thing before, so I wanted to use this opportunity to show you just how amazing blocking is.

Before and After at the Same Time!

The bottom shawl is mine and the top shawl will soon be my mom’s, pre blocking. You can see that the edges are curling up, the top is curling. It’s a good three inches smaller height wise and probably eight or ten inches shorter width wise.

The texture is completely different, too. You can see the top fabric is crinkly and rough looking, whereas the shawl I blocked is smooth.

I’m going to get soaking this baby and get it looking just like mine. Especially now that I have so much room for it to lay out and block properly!