And here they are after being blocked. The changes are a little bit subtle (especially in a picture, it’s more pronounced in person), but still important. Flip back and forth between this post and the previous one if you want to look more closely.⁠

The easiest place to see them is probably to look at the spaces in between the stitches, especially on the Hedgehog Fibres and La Bien Aimée yarns. You can see how they both sort of opened up and filled in the spaces between the stitches to make a much more solid fabric. Which is very much what I hope and expected it would do! A lot of yarns sort of bloom a bit when you first wash them, and it can make a big difference. If I didn’t expect that it was going to bloom a bit, I would have needed to use a smaller needle to get as dense a fabric as I want, but I suspected this would happen, so I went with a needle that gave me a slightly-too-open fabric in the swatch to leave room for it to bloom when blocked.⁠

This is reason seven hundred and forty three to block your swatches, just for anyone keeping track at home.⁠

The Berocco one didn’t fluff up quite the same way, but it did sort of soften a bit and the cables became a little less distinct. That’s not a good or a bad thing, but it is for sure something you’d want to know to help you decide if that’s what you’re going for in a particular project. ⁠

I say again (just because I never ever want to hurt anyone’s feelings!) that they are all beautiful yarns and that the projects would be glorious in any one of them.⁠

But I do know which one I’ll be using now…wanna guess?