The Business of Blocking

When it comes to knitting, I'm a process person.  Assembling the finished project has always been a bit of a necessary evil to me -- much like swatching.  However, working for a yarn shop means I need to finish my store samples neatly, and that includes blocking.

Here's the latest sample, in pieces, drying in the sunshine yesterday afternoon:

This evening or tomorrow, it'll become a little girl's cropped cardigan, complete with sweet white buttons.  :-)

Next weekend it will be used to show off the shop's selection of Schachenmayr SMC "Micro Grande" on sale at the Creative Stitches show in Edmonton.  It's a pleasant yarn to work with and the stitch definition is lovely, so I hope there will be some takers.  :-)

Sometimes we get a sample in from a manufacturer that needs a bit of blocking.  This was the case with the pretty "Bleddyn" shawlette recently received with our shipment of Berroco Boboli Lace yarn.  Packaging and shipping had rumpled the sample somewhat, so I brought it home to re-wash and block:

It doesn't look like much lying on an old towel, pinned down, with blocking wires running down the sides to the bottom (centre)...but it's a very pretty knit, and the leaf motif looks much better now that it's blocked flat.  (Before? I could describe it, but not in polite company... ;-) )

Little else is happening in the 'sewdio' just now...just a bit of piecing, while my mind wraps itself around the construction of new pieces.  Perhaps by WIP Wednesday...

Have a great rest of the weekend!