Why Yes, I am Rather Exacting

I explained last time how I deeply truly love flared cuffs.  They fit beautifully, make my hands look all pretty and girly, and are ridiculously convenient.  The only thing they have against them is that they can be tricky to block.  But no more, I have found the solution.

Graph paper and shampoo bottles.  No really.  Hear me out.  The problem with blocking cuffs like this is getting the flare nice and distinct and even.  To do that, you need a way to make it bigger than the part on your wrist, and you need keep the points uniformly spaced.  You can do that by laying it flat and pinning it out, but I find that leaves a crease along the fold lines.  Popping it over a shampoo bottle (or liquor bottle or a vase or whatever else you have on hand) to keep it standing up and then pinning out the points works beautifully.

The trick is in how you pull out the points.  You could eyeball it, or you could get some custom graph paper (it’s free) and use that to space everything just so.  You simply set the paper to have as many spokes as your project has points and pin away.  It’s unreasonably satisfying.  It works especially well if you’re dealing with 7 points on 9 or some other number that’s harder to just fudge.  I’ve done it several times now and it works beautifully.  See, isn’t that tidy?  And no crease from being folded while it dried.