Something New

I'm determined to start blogging again, so I'm learning ways to get faster and more interesting blog posts out to you. That does mean that you may occasionally get a stinker, but I thought that, as much as I "tweet", I should be able to update on the fly.

Anyway, last night I finally blocked the Lakehouse socks. Yes, it's true; the sock have been complete for 2 weeks, but I didn't bother to block them until last night. Anyway, I pulled them out of the washing machine and put them on my feet and blocked them to my feet exactly.

As a side note: I'm a wet-blocker. I put all finished items into the washing machine for a nice soak, then set the dial to "Spin", and wait for the beep. Water is spun away with little to no effort on your part and finished garment is clean and waiting to be pinned into it's final measurements. Everyone's happy :)

Anyway, I put the damp socks on my feet and they dried within the hour. . .I think this might be how I block all my socks, especially during the summer.  In the meantime, I need to buy a smaller sock blocker.  I bought the large size from FiberTrends, but my feet aren't large, they're medium.  I need medium sock blockers...or maybe I can just be cheap and block my socks on my feet.

I also finished washing and blocking my Henley Perfected Swatch.

The swatch to the left is the pre-washing/blocking size.  Even at this point, I can see that on size 4 (3.5mm) needles, the lace portion of the swatch is much bigger than it's supposed to be.  The stockinette portion looks fine, but this is why you swatch, to be absolutely certain that your sweater isn't going to go wonky.

This is the after washing/still drying swatch.  I actually left it in the washing machine and it went through a full cycle with my whites, so I really laundered it the way it might get laundered at my house.

Anyway, you can see that the extremely high linen content (70%) in this yarn prevented the cotton component (30%) from lengthening much.  So at the end of the washing/drying cycle the swatch looked pretty much like the unlaundered swatch.