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Lately Kelly Girls have been asking a lot of questions about blocking techniques. My favorite is wet blocking. Essentially, once you've finished the pieces of whatever you're making, and woven in all your loose ends, you dampen it, then pin it to the desired shape and size. You can use this technique to flatten curling edges, increase measurements, and just generally even out your knitted item. Here's a play-by-play of blocking the green aran baby sweater I've been working on. Karin's blocking board is making a guest appearance in these photos.
Get yourself a high quality blocking board, preferably a big one. It can be difficult to block things that don't fit on your available surface. You can also block on anything that can be pinned into and is unlikely to buckle under the strain (carpet, some heavy rugs, coated cardboard, etc.).
Beg, borrow, or steal a good supply of t-pins. They come in packs of 20-40; I've got about 100 now, which was more than enough to block the baby sweater. It's nice, if your board is big enough, to block everything at once, since wet blocked items can take 18-24 hours to dry.
Get a clean pan of water in which you can immerse the knit items and place it near your blocking surface. You could choose to wet them in the sink instead, as long as it's nice and clean. I just prefer to have everything handy.
Lay out your knitting and make sure you've got enough space to block what you intend to get wet, and make sure you have your pattern nearby to help you figure out what measurements you're blocking to.
Wet one piece at a time. I try to get the piece wet through, then gently squeeze out the excess water till it's just damp.
Pin the knit piece to the desired size and shape. Your pins should be along the edges, and should try to achieve the edge look you want. For instance, this sweater has a rolled edge on every piece, so I pinned just inside that, so that the rows just before the rolled edge should lay flat. If you have scalloped edging, or some other fancy edge, you'll need to use more pins to make sure it looks, as it blocks, the way it should look when it's dry.
Block all the pieces you can fit! Blocking is a pain, and takes up all kinds of floor space, so why not get it all done in one night?
Leave knitted pieces blocked out with pins till they are completely dry, if you can. If you can't, such as when you need to return your blocking board to its owner in a hurry, gently unpin pieces and carefully transfer them, trying to maintain the correct size and shape, to a clean towel where they can finish drying. If you let the pieces dry, and they still don't look like you wanted them to, you can block them again!
