The Knitter’s Curiosity Cabinet Volume 2 | Pantsville Press

Menu

Blog
Books
Patterns
- Ravelry
- Payhip
Information

The Knitter’s Curiosity Cabinet Volume 2

Instagram

I thought we were going to dive in to blocking the

I thought we were going to dive in to blocking the cowl. But enough people ask what stuff you need for blocking that I wanted to talk about that first.⁠
⁠
The answer, as with so many things, is it depends.⁠
⁠
Remember, blocking is OFTEN just wash it, smooth it out, let it dry. For that, you need somewhere to wash your knit (I use my bathroom sink) & somewhere to lay it out (I use a towel on the counter or floor).⁠
⁠
If you want to go slightly more involved, you can wash it, smooth it over something that matches the shape of the knit, let it dry. That's perfect for hats & mitts. You'd just need something the right shape (bowls work great for hats, bottles work great for mitts).⁠
⁠
If you want to do the fancy version, which again is only necessary for things like lace where you want to open up your stitch pattern, you need...whatever it takes to hold your fabric under tension in a specific shape while it dries.⁠
⁠
That means something you can put through your material to grab specific spots on the fabric (pins, wires, some people use thread) & something to hold it in place (blocking mats, mattress, thick carpet, couch cushion, cork board, a stretching frame if you're fancy & use thread).⁠
⁠
If you hardly ever knit lace, don't invest a lot of money or space in this. Get some pins (I like nice sturdy t-pins because they are strong & don't rust), & pin stuff out on a bed or thick carpet.⁠
⁠
If you knit lace all the time, invest in some blocking mats. The ones for gym/playroom floors are cheaper than the knitting specific ones. If you like having tools & do this often, get blocking wires. They make it much easier & faster. Maybe have a ruler handy to keep things straight & even.⁠
⁠
There's no way to make blocking huge things not take space. The whole idea is that you're laying it out flat while it dries. But you can speed it up by making sure the fabric damp, not soaking (wrap it in a towel & step on it) or by blowing a fan on it while it dries. And if you have blocking mats, you can lean them up against the wall if you're careful.⁠
⁠
For this project, I'm going to use blocking wires, because they're awesome for a cowl. But I'll talk about other options at the end.

When you're deciding how to block something, you n

When you're deciding how to block something, you need to consider what sort of fiber you're dealing with.⁠
⁠
Most things you knit with (animal fibers, plant fibers, man made fibers) will benefit from Basic Blocking. That's where you're just washing it to get it clean, primping it a bit to even out the stitches, & letting it dry flat. It's the equivalent of hanging up a damp shirt & running your hand down it once or twice to smooth it out a bit. ⁠
⁠
Just about anything you knit needs this, & I'm going to recommend you always do it. (You can find a few exceptions, but they are vanishingly rare, & if you know enough to come up with them, you know enough to exercise your own good judgement, mkay?)⁠
⁠
But only some kinds of fiber benefit from Fancy Blocking. That's where you go in with pins or wires (or both) & a few other implements & a feral gleam in your eye & impose your will upon the fabric. It's the equivalent of carefully ironing the pleats in a pleated skirt so they hang Just So.⁠
⁠
Most things don't need that, but some stuff does. If you're going to make something that needs it (like lace), you want to be sure you're working in a fiber that can hold a block. Because some fiber has more memory than others. By memory, I mean if you get it wet, put it in a particular shape, & let it dry, it will hold that shape.⁠
⁠
Animal fibers (wool, cashmere, alpaca) generally have good memory. Silk is pretty good too, though it's delicate so you have to be careful. But generally, if you get an animal fiber wet, pin it out, & let it dry, it will (mostly) hold the shape it dried in.⁠
⁠
Plant fibers (cotton, linen) are less good at this. They still benefit from a wash to get it clean & even out the stitches, but they won't hold a shape as crisply as animal fibers.⁠
⁠
Man made fibers are a whole other beast. You can do some fancy blocking stuff with them if you're valiant & brave, but that's a subject for another day. ⁠
⁠
Oh, and fibers that are mostly animal with a little man made, like a 75% wool 25% nylon sock yarn behave mostly like animal fibers.⁠
⁠
Here I'm using 100% Bluefaced Leicester wool from @ripplescraftsyarn, & it's going to block beautifully.⁠
⁠
More soon...

You know how I say 'blocking is often just getting

You know how I say 'blocking is often just getting it wet and smoothing it out?' Yeah. Well. Sometimes it's more than that. ⁠
⁠
There's a fancy version too. And this thing will just absolutely shine once we get it blocked the fancy way.⁠
⁠
But I know the fancy blocking can be scary! So I want to show you how I do it. Because it's not hard, but there are some tricks to it.⁠
⁠
But before we dive in, do you have any particular questions about the Fancy Version of blocking? Because I bet we can talk about most of them along the way as we block this thing...⁠
⁠
(Oh, and don't worry, we will still be shouting about abortion stuff, we're for sure not done with that. Just...I have to find a way to do both. And I don't think there's a smooth, seamless, perfectly structured way to move back and forth between them. So we're just going to take it one day at a time and let it be weird. Because these are weird times, and it won't do any good to pretend otherwise.)

I got these questions a bunch last week, so I want

I got these questions a bunch last week, so I wanted to put the answers all in one place. I'm not a doctor or a lawyer, but this is what I've been able to find (it's fine to share).⁠
⁠
•EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION VS ABORTION PILLS: You take emergency contraception (also called plan b or the morning after pill) after sex (within 72 hours is best, within 5 days can still work). they prevent pregnancy. You take abortion pills when you are less than 10 weeks pregnant. they end an existing pregnancy.⁠
⁠
•WEIGHT LIMITS: Emergency contraception is less effective in higher weight people (over 155 lbs/70 kg for plan b, over 195 lbs/88 kg for ella). You can still take it! they’re just less effective. ⁠
There are no weight limits for abortion pills. You can take them at any weight.⁠
⁠
•ARE THEY SAFE, DO THEY WORK: No medicine is 100% safe for everyone in every situation. But when taken in the first 9 weeks of pregnancy, abortion pills work 99.6% of the time. Less than 1% of people have major complications. They are much, much safer than pregnancy or childbirth.⁠
⁠
•HOW DO I GET EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION: If you need it fast, go to a pharmacy, planned parenthood office, family planning clinic, or student health office. You don’t need a prescription. You don’t need id. You can also buy it online ahead of time and keep it on hand just in case.⁠
⁠
•HOW DO I GET ABORTION PILLS: You can order them online, even if you’re not currently pregnant. The exact details differ from state to state (and are changing as the laws change). But go to plancpills.org or aidaccess.org for state by state guides.⁠
⁠
•HOW LONG DO THEY LAST: Emergency contraception has a shelf life of about 4 years for plan b, 3 years for ella. Abortion pills use two different medicines, one has a shelf life of about 5 years, the other 2 years. There will be a date on your package.⁠
⁠
•MORE: @scarleteenorg is an amazing resource for accurate, non judgemental info. Especially: https://www.scarleteen.com/article/pregnancy_and_parenting_sexual_health/how_to_access_a_safe_selfmanaged_medical_abortion⁠
⁠
Safety info here: https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/fact-sheet/the-availability-and-use-of-medication-abortion/

You can buy abortion pills online. Right now. In a

You can buy abortion pills online. Right now. In all 50 states. Even if you're not pregnant. ⁠
⁠
If you can't afford them, there are resources to help you pay for them.⁠
⁠
The folks at @aidaccess will help you. ⁠
Their website is aidaccess.org.⁠
⁠
The folks at @plancpills will also help you. ⁠
Their website is plancpills.org. ⁠
⁠
I ordered abortion pills earlier this week, because if I get pregnant, I want an abortion. And this country might not let me have one. So I want to have abortion pills on hand in case I get pregnant (they last for several years, so I'm going to keep them just in case).⁠
⁠
You should too.⁠

[edit to add:

Yes, it’s totally fine to share this, you don’t need to ask!

If the websites are busy, try back later. I imagine they’re getting absolutely slammed, but they’ll be back as soon as they can.

end edit]

Sometimes you walk into your office and the light

Sometimes you walk into your office and the light hits the pile of yarn by your desk just so and it absolutely glows. Seems to happen an awful lot if you have @sevensistersarts yarn sitting around (which I highly recommend)! ⁠
⁠
(This exact set is a secret project Karen and I are working on, which you will be hearing more about in the not too distant future. The closest thing on the site now is the Meridian Quintet in Flower Power, but this one has an extra sneaky color tucked in there. Like I said, more later, but just for today this was too gorgeous and summery not to just kind of bask in it for a bit.)

Did I spend the weekend sewing? Yup, yup I did. An

I did this on stories last weekend, & when I said

I did this on stories last weekend, & when I said something about how I should probably stop bombarding unsuspecting knitters with the ongoing saga of What Yard Trash Will I Shove In Jars This Week, a whole bunch of folks said they actually like it.⁠
⁠
So, since I'm trying to do less work stuff & more life stuff this summer (while still feeding the gaping maw of the content machine that rules our lives), I figure cool, perhaps weekends are for life stuff instead of work stuff.⁠
⁠
Right now, that means chive vinegar (plus it's gorgeous).⁠
⁠
So, this starts with the chive plant in my herb garden. It overwinters fine here (Maine), & it's always one of the first herb plants to flower.⁠
⁠
Once the flowers open, I snip them off. I can usually do this two or three times, a week or so apart, because the flowers don't all open at once.⁠
⁠
I bring them in & fling them in a random jar. Here it's a quart mason jar, but anything that's clean, that you can seal up fairly well, & that you can get the flowers back out of later is fine (so not something with a super narrow neck). Pick a size you can fill fairly full with flowers.⁠
⁠
Figure out the volume of your jar & put something like 1/3 to 1/2 that much vinegar in a pot. My jar is 32 ounces, so I did about a cup & a half of white vinegar. Don't use your fancy stuff, just plain vinegar is fine. Toss in a little bit of sugar and salt (I did about 1/4 cup of sugar and maybe a tablespoon of salt) & heat it up enough to get the sugar and salt to dissolve. ⁠
⁠
Let it cool then dump it on the flowers.⁠
⁠
Top the jar off with a tasty vinegar you like. I use apple cider vinegar we make from the cider we buy in the fall. You want a live vinegar (one that still has critters in it, not one that's been heat treated/sterilized/pasteurized), because you want our wee microbe friends to get in there & chomp on the sugar & flowers.⁠
⁠
Put lid on loosely & let it sit for a week or so. Give it a little shake when you think of it. In a few days it will turn PINK & fill you with glee (tell me it's not just me...).⁠
⁠
After a week or so, strain out the flowers, & it's ready. Use it like any other flavored vinegar (I love it on potatoes).

Nope. I'm fine. I'm not completely undone by somet

Load More... Follow on Instagram

Twitter

Tweets by @HunterHammersen

Books

Search

Archives

Archives

Copyright Hunter Hammersen, 2009-2019