I’m officially considering myself a member of team FO. In the last few days I finished THREE projects. The first was a poncho that I didn’t actually knit, but agreed to do the finishing work on. The second is my Bethoven’s Rib scarf, so called because it’s a k3p1 rib and I kept hearing Bethoven’s Fifth symphony “da da da daaa” in my head while I was knitting it.

Now, I am not one to ever iron. Ever. I just don’t own clothes that require ironing. My husband James irons. He’s went to the United States Coast Guard Academy and he was actually trained to iron. So, why did I go to Target yesterday and buy the fanciest iron they had? For my knitting of course. Actually, we needed a new iron at the house, I had been coveting garment steamers with the idea that I’d start blocking things, finally. My friend Martha told me that she always blocks with her iron–she has one that has a vertical steam feature, and she found it at Target. Bingo! Two problems solved.

The Bethoven’s Rib scarf really needed blocking. As you can see, the blocks of stockinette curled heavily, and the scarf was not quite as long as I wanted it to be. Crazy Aunt Purl says that Blocking is the New Botox I have to agree. It’s like plastic surgery for your knitting. Knitty has a nice little tutorial about blocking and they suggest using a mattress to pin down your knitting. I used our downstairs Ikea couch-bed thingy.

As soon as I started steaming the scarf, it relaxed–it “asked” to be stretched and molded into shape. the wool seemed to like blocking.

I also finished a scarf for Be Sweet Yarns using their cool Ribbon Ball–it’s a mohair boucle with little ribbons tied here and there. The ribbons have about 5 different styles and they vary randomly. It was really fun to work with.

At this rate, I may even get to make my Olympic Socks after all!

Go Team FO! And a blocking convert