And there it is dry and with the wires out.

The second picture is pretty much the exact same shot before it was blocked so you can see the difference.

The fabric is relaxed. The stitch pattern is clear with crisp lines of decreases and nice open yarn overs. The top and bottom both have a lovely scalloped edge with adorable little points. The fabric is several inches bigger left to right and top to bottom.

The total active time (not counting soaking time or drying time) was about ten to fifteen minutes. I ran the two wires through the fabric, wiggled them into place, and tossed the whole thing in the sink. Then I came back an hour or so later, squeezed the water out, and hung it up to dry overnight. In the morning, I slipped the wires out and it was done.

It took me longer to take and edit the photos (and much much longer to write the words) than it took to actually block the thing.

And remember…this is the fancy blocking! Most stuff just needs to be soaked, squeezed, and patted out flat to dry. You only need to do ‘all this’ (which is, I cannot stress this enough, at most ten minutes of extra effort) for stuff where the fabric needs to be opened up under tension.

And wow does that ten minutes of extra effort make all your hours and hours of knitting shine!

Next up, some options for if you don’t have blocking wires.

But for now, let’s just take a moment and revel in the pretty.

P.S. Just in case you missed it early on, this is my Evolve cowl, which is currently available in Jen Arnall-Culliford’s lovely book, Confident Knitting. Later this year the rights come back to me, at which point I’ll release it individually.

I had a new sample made in Ripples Crafts Yarn’s lovely bluefaced leicester yarn in the color Sea Cave, and I wanted to show you the whole process of blocking it, because blocking really makes a project like this shine.

Keep an eye out for the pattern later this year (probably September, but given the state of the world, I’m not promising firm dates for anything these days).