Well I finished knitting Camellia from glampyreknits.com...now comes the blocking. It's made in Cascade 109 bulky tweed which is 100% wool (I think), and as it is in a kind of lace pattern - it needs blocking. As most of you probably know I hate making things up and finishing - and blocking is included. I've never really understood it and after a few iron vs novelty scarf run ins in my first few weeks of teaching myself to knit, I've stayed well away from blocking.

Anyway this evening I took a deep breath, and pinned one of the front sections out. I did it on the mattress in the spare bedroom on top of a towel. It took me about 45 mins but I managed to block it to 13 inch by 20 inch, spraying it with lots of water along the way and putting pins in approx every inch. When I had finished i sprayed a load more water over it and now I suppose I wait for it to dry - it's next to a radiator so I don't suppose it will be too long. I have read about submerging the whole thing in a bath full of water and rolling it in towels but I was too scared for that!

Anyway, have I done this right? I worked it out from bits and bobs I have picked up over the last couple of years. Will it stay this size now it is blocked? What about when I wash it, will it lose the size and will I have to block it again?

I'm sooooooooooooooooooo scared!

It sounds like you've done everything properly, and way more thoroughly than I ever do!

When you come to wash it again, all you need to do is lie it flat to dry and make sure it's properly shaped. No harder than what you should do with any wool garment. My boyfriend should take note, he once hung a lambswool cardigan over the knob at the end of the bannister to dry!

Oh, and make sure you never leave it anywhere where someone can put it in the washing machine and felt it. :mad:

It looks to me like you've blocked it well :) . I tend to use the submerge in water method only for small items; I found that with larger items, the weight of the fabric made blocking quite fiddly, and I was scared of pulling it out of shape (especially when taking it out of the sink soaking wet).

With the spraying method, the main thing is to make sure that you've sprayed everywhere uniformly and that the water's really soaked in well. I sometimes add a tiny bit of fabric conditioner to the spray bottle, which seems to help with getting the water to soak in.

It sounds good to me. I use the full soaking method for lace and I have recently had a go with steam blocking because I have this idea of it taking less time to dry but to be honest it scares me witless. At least with cold water you know that you're not going to ruin your work.

Thats what I did with Samus and it worked really well. I found that having a fan playing over it dried it much quicker and its safer than using heat:D

Thanks for the reassurance...I suppose I can stop panicking as much. I think I would have used the full soaking method if it wasn't such bulky yarn, but as it is I think it would have clung onto all the water and would have been impossible for me to handle.

Thanks for the fabric conditioner idea Hecate, I will use that when I block the other 4 pieces. I thought if I do one a night then it can be ready for sewing up at the weekend (ergh!).

I'm not looking forward to blocking the back of it as the piece is about 30 inches long and needs to be blocked to over 60 inches - the back strip does make the sleeves too though so that would explain why it has to be blocked so long.

I'll keep you updated!