After a little over a month of hard work, my first sweater is almost complete. It is currently blocking on the floor of the spare room and I am holding my breath, and crossing all my fingers, until I actually stitch it together tomorrow and add the cowl neck. I have never blocked anything with this level of seriousness before. With hats, I normally just soak them and use a plate to block them out as they dry. When it comes to scarves, cowls and blankets, let’s face it, I just can’t be bothered.
But when it comes to sweaters, proper blocking technique could not be avoided. So I hauled my butt over to a supermarket and bought myself some of those foam alphabet tiles from the toy section. I giggled to myself and had to take a picture when I put them in my car. I don’t have any children, so the blocks seemed so anachronistic, nestled in my back seat. Only a complete obsession, like knitting, could drive me to this level of absurdity.
I also must confess, that until that day, I did not own a steamer. That little red box you see beneath the blocks is a little travel steamer that I had to pick up as well.
Even after getting the blocks home, I was bait hesitant to start, but this afternoon I finally built up enough courage to start. After almost an hour of obsessively measuring and pinning, measuring and repining, and measuring again, I finally coerced the pieces into dimensions that vaguely reflected the measurements in the schematic. I ran the steamer over them once and then had to run to dinner with the boyfriend. After getting home tonight, I gave them another once over. I’ll try and stitch the seams tomorrow.
Hipster Spice 