It’s up to you…but I know what I’d do

One of the top three questions I get asked is some version of ‘do I haaaaaaaaaaaave to block my knitting?’ And the answer is nope, but I really think you should. I’m pretty sure this picture shows you why.⁠

The light purple envelope has been blocked. The dark purple one hasn’t. Which one do you like better? Which one looks more like an envelope? Is it worth five minutes of your time to go from one to the other? Because it literally takes five minutes of active time (then some time to dry).⁠

I mean if you really, truly prefer the unblocked one, cool. You’re the boss of your knitting. You get to decide how you treat it. But I’ve pretty much never been sad to have taken a bit of extra time to block.

As for how you do it, I’ll show you how I blocked these in a later post. But I try very hard to put explicit blocking instructions (often with pictures) in patterns that call for anything more complicated than ‘get it wet, lay it flat.’ Plus I’ve written a ton about it on the blog, as have many many many other people. So the info is totally out there (I know you know how to google). You just have to do it.⁠

Now…questions and answers:⁠

• Yes, it will be a pattern (with any luck at all, it will be February’s pattern). Do the mailing list thing below or just sort of generally follow me if you want to hear when it happens.
• The light purple yarn is one of @knerdstring‘s dk bases in Alpine Daisy. The dark purple yarn is @spacecadetyarn‘s astrid base in what I *think* was a one of a kind colorway.⁠
• The two other most asked questions are ‘can you tell me what needle size to use’ and ‘can I have the pattern free,’ and for the record, the answer to those is also nope.