Most knit and crochet items benefit from being blocked. The process evens out stitches and allows the beauty of the pattern to be revealed. This can be difficult, however, for items made in the round, such as gloves.
With a few simple household ingredients, however, it is easy to make a pair of blockers suitable for short and long gloves and mittens.
Materials
- One pair of medium sized rubber gloves.
- Approx 1.5kg (just over 3lb) of uncooked rice (or similar volume of lentils).
- Two empty plastic bottles. When choosing the bottles, try to avoid two litre or above containers as they tend to have too large a diameter and may cause your gloves to stretch.
- Packing or other wide tape.
Method
These blockers are much easier to make if there are two people. The method is simple but cumbersome.
- Fill the gloves with the rice or lentils.
- Make sure that the rice fills out the fingers and thumb of the glove.
- Ask your helper to hold the glove and insert the bottle into it, wedging the bottle down into the grains.
- Tape the glove and bottle together using the packing tape.
To Block Gloves
Carefully slide your completed gloves onto the blockers. Lay them onto a towel and spray the gloves with water. When they have fully dried, turn the gloves and blocks over, and spray the other side. Again, allow to dry.
Why Block Your Knitting or Crochet?
Blocking serves two very useful purposes.
Firstly, it evens out your stitches. Most knitters will have a certain amount of variation in their tension, for example at the beginning or rows. By gently easing wetted work into shape, the stitches even out.
Secondly, blocking allows you to get your knitted and crocheted pieces to the right shape and size. Again, the gentle manipulation of the wetted items allows the crafter to ensure that the pieces are correctly placed as they dry. This is particularly useful for sweaters, or other garments which have flat pieces which need to be sewn together, as it is easy to make sure that seams are the same lengths etc.
Where lace work have been completed, blocking is particularly vital, It allows the beauty of your work to really shine through as the ridges and loops of your work are flattened and smoothed by the blocking process.
Blocking Top Tips
- Check the label to make sure that the yarn being blocked can be made wet.
- Be careful that you don’t cause the garment stress when it’s wet. For example, make sure that a wet garment is fully supported when being moved to avoid unnecessary stretching. Many crafters prefer to pin the item into place (or place over the blockers, as above) and spray with water, to avoid this.
- Don’t felt your yarn! When the finished piece has been made wet, treat it with as much care and as little movement as possible. Agitation when wet will cause the fibres to work together and felt, which is not the purpose of blocking.
The glove blockers may look rudimentary, but they are a simple way of allowing the knitter or crocheter to make the most of their handiwork and to enable their handmade gloves to be shown at their best.
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