Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Purses

Lately, I've been working furiously to complete some fun knit and crochet purses. I realized that while I have some purses in stock, I don't have any which are knit or crochet.

In the process, I have had my first (and successful, I'm happy to report!) experience with blocking. Blocking, according to a great DIY article on knitty.com, "makes your life so much easier. You shape the pieces into the way you want them to live, using steam or water. It makes your knitting more even and sets the stitches." For example, I crochet several granny squares, which I want to join together to make a purse. But when I finished crocheting the squares, they weren't exactly square. So I dampened them, stretched them about this way and that, and pinned them in a perfect square shape to a towel-covered piece of cardboard to dry. Voila! Two days later, I have actual squares!


Course, there is always more to learn. If you read the entire article on blocking that I've linked to the paragraph above, you'll realize, as I did, that putting your damp knitting on a towel to block means it will take double the time to dry. Now I know for the NEXT blocking project!

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