Look, I never said I wasn't easily amused. I fully admit to being scandalously easily amused.⁠ But also, I have been actually sewing stuff, like with a sewing machine. And that means I've been interacting with pins way way way more than anyone really needs to. And it turns out [...]

And there it is dry and with the wires out. The second picture is pretty much the exact same shot before it was blocked so you can see the difference. The fabric is relaxed. The stitch pattern is clear with crisp lines of decreases and nice open yarn overs. The [...]

Now all we need to do is hang it up and wait for it to dry. You may have noticed I haven't said anything about getting your fabric wet yet. That's because I do not like weaving the wires through damp fabric. It just feels icky in my hands (and [...]

This...this is mostly here because it has a certain low budget space princess vibe that amuses me. But it is a good chance to take a moment and see how different fabric looks when it's under tension. Compare it to how it looked before. In the first picture, you've got [...]

Next step, do pretty much the exact same thing up top. This really is exactly the same process as at the bottom, so I'll just sort of vaguely gesture at the previous post and assume you can handle it.  Just pick your point, run your wire through, work your way [...]

So, to block a cowl, I start by threading my blocking wire through the bottom of the cowl. I pick a landmark in the stitch pattern and bring my wire through that spot, all the way around the cowl. I'm bringing the wire through the same point in each pattern [...]

One of the things I'm trying to show you here is how blocking changes fabric, so let's start out by really looking at the fabric fresh off the needles. This is how it looks flat. Notice that the top and bottom edge are sort of rolled and a little wavy. [...]

I thought we were going to dive in to blocking the cowl. But enough people ask what stuff you need for blocking that I wanted to talk about that first. The answer, as with so many things, is it depends. Remember, blocking is OFTEN just wash it, smooth it out, [...]