Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Introduction and a Question

Hi everyone! I've been signed up for this blog for a while now though I (finally) just started my afghan. Had to finish up a few projects and save up for the yarn. Better late than never I guess. :) My name is April and I've been knitting for a little over two years now. I haven't tackled a knitting project of this size before but I wanted a challenge.


My question though has to do with blocking. I've never actually had to block anything before and I'm wondering how much of a differance it makes to the squares. I'm about halfway through the Julie H. Levy square and I'm noticing some of my stitches are a bit larger than others. Also, some areas where the cables join the background are a tad loose. Will I be able to tighten this up when I block? Also can you shape the cables to get the nice points like it has in the picture when you block? I'm not sure if I should just rip it out and start over or if these are just minor things that blocking will fix. Lastly...if I try blocking it and it doesn't fix these things can you frog and re-knit yarn that's been blocked or will it effect the wool to much? I'm using Knitpicks Wool of the Andeas in natural if that helps.

Nice to meet you all and can't wait to see more pictures of your afghans. Also thanks in advance to anyone who can help out with my questions.

1 comment:

strikkeforsker said...

Welcome April,

The squares are not exactly 12"x12", but somewhere between 11x11 and 13x13. Blocking helps a lot and finishing even more. You can unravel a square after blocking if it is not felted. You may or may not like to use the unraveled yarn, it depends on the brand.
You could test this by knitting a small test swatch, e.g., a cable diagram plus 3-5 garter stiches at the edge. Soak, block and frog it.

Ulla