Blocking!

Okay so I now admit that I have never once actually fully BLOCKED a piece of knitting. So shoot me.

After consulting the Oracle (a.k.a. Jenny at Knit Café) I was sufficiently bolstered with courage, and I did it.

Filled the sink with cold water and some baby shampoo, then stuck the sweater in. SOOOOO hard to resist splooshing it around, but I reeeeally didn't want the thing to felt (it's wool and silk) so I managed to keep a hold of myself.

Rinsed three times, then GENTLY rolled it in a towel and brought it downstairs to dry on the pinball machine - in a room where I could close a door to keep cats out.

Go ahead, scroll down and look at the first pictures of this same sweater -

You can see how much flatter this makes the sweater - kind of the difference between a teenage girl's loopy sloopy handwriting and an architect's no-nonsense unified printing.

Here's two shots:




Unfortunately, this process left me with sleeves that are now a bit too long - any hints on how to "unstretch?" I was as careful as possible NOT to pull them out, but they're about an inch or two longer now....

Oh and here's how you do your own patterns for Fair Isle - using knitters' graph paper, just figure some patterns and count how many stitches you need per complete pattern. Most of mine use 4.

Then all you have to do is be sure the total number of stitches on whatever piece you are working is evenly divisible by that number.