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Blocking HELP!

MitchPR08's picture
Sun, 2010-05-02 05:26 — MitchPR08

Ok so I finished the torso part of my sweater, and went to block it, well, when I pulled it out of the water and squeezed all the water out the sweater is now BIGGER than what it needs to be! What do I do?

Comments

Sun, 2010-05-02 17:28 — PaulJMC
PaulJMC's picture

Poor bugger - I rememmber my

Poor bugger - I rememmber my panic when I did this on my first Jumper too!

Once it was dry it was perfect but looked huge when I roilled it out if the towel!

I'm sure yours will be fine too!

P

Sun, 2010-05-02 11:10 — MitchPR08
MitchPR08's picture

I was able to "push and

I was able to "push and prod" it back into shape like you said, so everything is ok now, I think when I took it out of the water it did stretch. But its ok now and is drying on a towel. But good lord that scared me! But yes I did do a swatch, however I did not wash the swatch. I merely bound off and then measured. But, lesson learned.

Sun, 2010-05-02 12:19 — YarnGuy716
YarnGuy716's picture

My knitting always loosens

My knitting always loosens up after washing (a lesson I also learned the hard way) so I always wet my swatch and lay it out to dry.

With a full sized sweater I will drain the water out so I'm not lifting a heavy, water saturated sweater. I let it sit in the sink, gently squeezing out water and then I roll it in a towel.

Sun, 2010-05-02 10:36 — Tallguy
Tallguy's picture

I am not sure I understand

I am not sure I understand what you mean by "pulled it out of the water". That might be the problem. Whatever you do, you never pull or stretch your sweater while it is wet, especially when it is full of water (unless you need to stretch it). It will be very heavy, and can stretch out of shape badly. So all the instructions tell you to gently lift it out of the water, held from underneath all together in one piece, so it doesn't stretch out at all.

When rolled up in the towel to get the excess water out, you may find it will pull it self back into shape. You might be able to push and prod and shape it back to the size you need. It might return to normal as it dries. Maybe.

But you did your swatch, didn't you? You washed it? You would find that some yarns will stretch out a lot when washed, some will shrink, some don't change. This is why we do the swatch... you need to find out what will happen AFTER the final treatment. That is when you take your measurements for gauge. You will get incorrect numbers if you measure while still freshly knit on the needles.

However, all is not lost. There is someone here that can do alterations to knitting (I see his face, don't remember the name), so I'm sure he will give you some instructions how to make it fit.