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Dear Kay,

It’s a fair question, right? How in the world do you manage to block a giant piece of knitting?

As one of the world’s leading experts in blocking Color Explosion Throws (I’ve made two), I’m here to help.

Abandon Your Tape Measure

The first thing is to let go of any prissy pre-existing notions you have about precision in blocking. This is not about pinning a four-by-six-foot piece of knitting into perfect rectangularity. This thing is so big that you can see the curvature of the planet, so nobody cares whether it’s a rectangle or a trapezoid. It’s great however it’s shaped.

The goal? It’s simple. You want a blanket that is clean, now that you’ve finished dragging your work around for months. You want your yarn to blossom. You want your stitches to calm down, settle in, and behave.

Don’t measure anything to see if you hit the correct dimensions. It’s going to be the size that Mother Nature and your gauge created. It’s a great whackin’ big piece of knitting. Congratulations!

What You Need

The requirements? Nine big towels, a flat space at least the size of your blanket, and wool wash. (I use Soak. We sell Soak. It comes in cute bottles and also a li’l travel 8-pack so you can experiment and discover Your Favorite Soak. I love all the Soaks, even Unscented Soak.)

Also: a bathtub.

It’s possible to do this in a good-sized kitchen sink, but I never do that because I worry about mushroom soup somehow getting into my blanket.

The Steps

Step 1: Fill the tub with about six inches of cold water and a big dollop of Soak. (I don’t measure; I just squeeze a slug of it in there.) Ease your blanket into its sudsy, fragrant bath, and leave it for an hour or so. Or, in my case, five hours because I always forget about it.

Step 2: Here’s the tricky part: getting the water out of your giant handknit. Drain the tub, then gently squoosh the 85-pound glob of wet knitting until water no longer runs free. Don’t wring. This takes a bit of time, but try to get it as water-free as you can.

Step 3: The Betoweling. I use six big towels for this process, starting with three on the floor as the landing zone.

Gently lift your glob with a forklift or backhoe (it still weighs a ton). Be careful not to yank on it; pick it up as a snug loaf to avoid busting a seam. Give it a final squeeze, then spread it out with love and care on the towels. Put three more towels on top of your giant handknit, then roll it up. I typically stand on the thing, rolling it a bit, then standing some more. The more water you extract now, the faster your giant handknit will be dry.

Step 4: The Drying. Put down another set of three dry towels. (The first six will be profoundly wet, so I’m sorry about that. Throw them in the dryer now. Or hang them in the wind as of old.) Unroll your blanket roulade and spread out your blanket on the three dry towels, and wait. Get the edges as straight as you want, but no pins. It’ll be just fine without them.

My Color Explosion Throw dried within a day, due to my exquisite water removal skills. Sorry to brag, but I feel I’ve really nailed this thing.

May your giant handknit dry quickly. May your towels be fluffy. May you get another blanket on your needles as soon as possible.

Love,

Ann

68 Comments

  • Sadly your photos aren’t showing up for me. But your method is similar to mine. Although I blocked my strips, rather than the whole blanket, and invested in a salad spinner to get as much water out as I could. This is because the last time I blocked a jumper I was dancing around on it in its towels on the kitchen floor, but then my smooth bottomed croc hit the floor and I went flying lol!

    I adored making my blanket and am very tempted to make another one. Thanks for a great pattern.

    • I put mine to spin only in my washer. Saves a lot of work.

    • How in earth did you get your knitted strips into a salad spinner?!!!

      • It was a tight fit but they just went in!

    • Photo gremlins! Sorry bout that—hope you can see them now. Sudsy bathtub pix of a handknit on its way to glory . . . And thank you for the tip about Stomping With Care! The hazards of blocking . . .

  • Great post! Very funny writting, I love it!
    However, most immages don’t upload, I tried both Chrome and Edge.

    Best,

    João

  • I’ve had good success letting my woolens soak in my top loading washer, spinning and carefully removing. As the blankets are too large for a net bag I don’t use one. I’ve never had a problem with yarn ends getting twisted, but I suggest making certain they are woven in.

    • Me too

    • Many top loaders, including mine, spray water partway through the final spin. To be extra careful about felting, I turn off the water hoses that go into the washer before spinning woolens. The washer spin cycle definitely extracts at least as much water as the towel method, even if you don’t get to dance on the towel jellyroll.
      Also, laying the newly clean item under a ceiling fan, or even just by a regular fan, helps speed the drying process considerably.

    • Excellent use of a top loader!

  • I do a Lucy Ricardo by doing some tub stomping before lifting out.

    • Let’s all pause and recall that episode, so great.

      • Yes!

  • I would use the washing machine to soak, then spin out the water. Lay the now nearly dry blanket on towels on the guest room bed, works great! Bonus, shut the door to keep the cat out, he loves damp wool!

    • I do the same thing. My new top loading washer has no agitator, just sort of a bump in the center which allows for even more room to soak, but for the spin cycle, I have to re-arrange the item so that it follows customary circular shape. After a few moments os spinning, it has pushed itself against the walls of the tub and just stays there while the tub spins. I have washed several woven wool bankets this way with no problems, I think its a gentler way to go. than stomping, squeezing, etc. Fortunately my cats don’t like wet wool, but they will knead up the dry ones!
      PS: I have actually washed wool coats this way too!)

  • You might have given me the confidence/kick in the pants to attempt blocking my giant afghan/blanket. It’s a wedding gift and the recipients are already beyond their first anniversary. I’ll have to make some modifications to your method since I don’t have a bathtub (sad face) or quite that many towels. Not to mention it is octagonal so I feel obliged to try using a tape measure to get it somewhat evenly shaped. But, you have proven it can be done so hopefully my wedding gift will arrive long before the couple’s second anniversary. Thanks!!!

    • A wedding gift! What a treasure that will be. I’m liking this idea of using a top loader–mine is front loading so I don’t like the fact that the door locks and I couldn’t get into there to check on things, but it does seem a superclean environment unlike my kitchen sink. ; )

    • If you don’t have a bathtub, and you have a little storage space, it’s worth investing in one of the large size Trugtubs. The largest will hold a blanket easily I would think. Just hide it away from any lurking gardeners so it doesn’t get used to haul leaves or compost or anything….

  • Bravo! Can’t wait to see this blanketing a bed!!!

    • You and me both. I gotta get my seam game on because I still have the first Color Explosion half sewn up. It’s going to be a three-needle bindoff extravaganza.

      • Oh yes please Ann! Please post about the 3 needle bind off extravaganza!!!!

        I am 1 strip into the blanket and it is going fast! My blocking approach will be soaking in a very large lingere bag removal from the bath is easier then with less stress on the yarn and roll in towels standing on them to extrude all excess water then place on my yoga mat to dry. I have 3 mats and they work great for the during process.

      • Hi Ann, would love any “extravaganza” tips as I am three square sequences away from the knitting finish line. Unfortunately, I missed the little errata about three balls of A, B, C until strip 2 and just ran out of yarn B on the last strip… waiting for the little bugger to come since I didn’t love all other possible combos (of course I didn’t!). Then need to three-needle, and block in the laundry room sink in the house where we removed all bathtubs in the 2016 remodel and have a front-loader washer 🙂

        • I use my front load washer to wash my hand knits since it has a hand wash setting. Works perfectly. I made a ginormous Aran afghan as a wedding gift and it was no problem in the front load, and mine is a condo sized, high efficiency Barbie sized washer dryer set.

  • Many, many thanks for answering one of my longstanding questions – how do you clean a hand kit wool blanket. I think I will take this on this spring, spreading out on the patio between pollen storms. Next question, what do you park in the driveway and drive in the parkway.

    • Just make sure it’s a shady patio. That warm summer sun will shrink your blanket dramatically. Don’t ask me how I know.

    • Yes Lucy!

  • My method is if you have a top loading washing machine, then you can soak it in there and only spin dry. That way there isn’t any bending / lifting heavy knitted item. Mine is so dry that I just lay it on the couch, however I haven’t made anything with 100% wool, but would probably use the same method.

  • Sorry for the second comment but the other idea would be to soak the strips – or squares. I made a large granny square wrap and blocked all the squares individually so there was no large item to soak, but a little more work.

  • Ann, I’ve never thought of you as a braggart before, but don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t begin with “scrub out the tub.”
    Or maybe I missed it – at my house, it would be in an earlier section: productive procrastination. “When the miles of seaming start to get you down, take a break. Walk into the bathroom, pop the lid on the Soak – as smelling salts to revive yourself. With a strong whiffs as needed for strength and endurance, scrub the tub while visualizing how very soon your completed blanket will need its bath there.”
    Maybe your version had something like “marvel how clean the kids bathroom stays without kids in it,” which is going to be my version before I know it. Which kind of makes me think I should be knitting more blankets, stat, both to encourage more bathroom cleaning and a greater enjoyment of it.

    • Haaa! You nailed it! key phrase here “without kids in it”! If they were still here, I’d be buying a top loading washing machine, or something.

      • I soak my knits in the kitchen sink, *because* it makes me clean the sink first! And then sweep the floor so I can roll the towels out on it.

        And yes, the kids’ bathroom does stay a lot cleaner without kids here. But I still have my top loader, and that’s where I wash my lovely log cabin blanket! Soak only, then spin, rearranging once or twice.

    • Snort of recognition at “scrub out the tub”!

  • Depending on the size of my projects I either soak them in the sink or in a large mixing bowl. Then I squeeze out as much water as I can and lay them gently lengthwise on a large towel or pair of towels. I roll those up lengthwise and lay around the outer edge of my top-loading washer. I run it through the last spin of a cycle. This gets so much of the water out that when I lay it out, it dries so fast.

  • Awesome post although I really shouldn’t have read it. Every time I looked at the Color Explosion Throw Bundle in the shop, it was always sold out. But not today….there goes my New Years resolution of not buying any more yarn for a while. And of course I had to go and buy the lovely Revolution Tray to put said yarn in.

  • As many have said above, a soak and spin in a top loader without any agitation has worked amazingly well for me on all manner of handknits. I cannot believe I used to do the gentle squeeze, wrap in towel etc. The spin cycle takes all the water out and the item is bone dry within hours.

    I’ve had to spritz to block lace but no big hardship. Your blanket is fabulous, Ann!

  • WE GOT PCTURES WORKING BUT FOODLADY WON’T LET US SHOW PCTURE OF SOOP IN KITCHEN SINK.

  • Philistine here. This kind of thing is why I don’t knit blankets. I have a cat, and a tendency to want to wash things. How often are you going to go through all this? Even more Philistine – why I make some things in synthetics that are happy with the front-loader washer that has an ultra-handwash cycle, and the dryer.

    • Amen, sister!

  • Love the sprinkles of humor in this piece!

  • I wash my hand knits the way you do but I always spi them in my washer, they come out beautiful every time!

  • My husband has small fans. If it isn’t ‘open windows weather’ (and it sure isn’t) I place one near the FO… it helps.

    • Just posted the same idea. Great minds think alike 😉

  • Thanks so much for this. I am 1 1/2 strips into the throw. I really love knitting it. I hadn’t even thought about the blocking. Marling is so fun!!

  • It’s possible to buy a small clothes centrifuge on Amazon. (Search for portable spin dryer to find them.) I bought one of them a few years ago. It wasn’t cheap, but it has definitely been worth the expenditure. it has been absolutely revolutionary: knitted things dry in no time.

  • Hi, Ann,
    Have you ever put the blanket into the dryer on the SPIN CYCLE only to remove the excess water?
    I have used tat method for other handknits that I can put into a laundry bag, but not something as large as a blanket. Just curious.
    Thanks, Nancy

    • I know you meant to say put it in the washer. Also, if your dryer has an air-only setting, it can sometimes help to get whatever started on its way to dry. The only hazard there is if the yarn is subject to pilling, it can be a mess, but as a starter for a few minutes, it can be hugely helpful.

  • Just one more BIG hint for drying handwashed knits: aim a floor fan – heck, even a little desk fan if that’s all you have – at that giant damp object on your floor. A gently wafting breeze speeds the drying process wonderfully, even in cool weather.

    • After spinning a blanket in my top loading washer (27 years and going strong), I lay it out on blocking mats on the floor of my guest room/studio and turn on the ceiling fan. Works great! The airflow really helps.

      • Airflow is everything!

  • For big enough projects, I find I can schloop the wet, squeezed thing into my laundry basket and then take it down the hall to my front load washing machine. I can pop it in there on the spin/drain cycle and it takes much less time to dry afterwards!

    • Bonus points for use of the word schloop omg so good.

  • Can’t wait to see it in all its glory!

  • I just wash on the delicate cycle and spin it dry. Just right dampness for blocking. Dries more quickly than pressing in towels. I have a front loader. I just finished a picket fence afghan and I might block each square before I block the whole thing. Not sure whether it might make the seams straighter more easily.

  • The betoweling!

  • Got the pictures. Loved your commentary. I had a good chuckle. And, your comments were great about not worrying about getting everything perfect. One less thing to stress about. Thanks.

  • I’ve always wondered about this. In fact, it’s kept me from knitting blankets. However, I have a large chunky weight cabled throw on the needles and only a few skeins left to knit so the timing of this post is impeccable. Many thanks!

  • You forgot about your Color Explosion soaking in the tub!?!?! (Actually, that’s why I always set a timer on my phone. Otherwise it would probably soak until someone needed the tub.)

  • The Betowling The Blanket Roulade Your posts always make me laugh! Thanks!

  • Is a roulade sort of like a Little Debbie?

  • Another vote for the soak & spin method in the washing machine. I use this for sweaters or anything larger. or a bunch of sweaters at once, before being put away for the summer!

  • Thank you for all this wonderful information. I have a new top loader, no agitator washer but never even considered putting my new knitted items in there to soak and spin. Can’t wait to try it.

    Now I feel more confident to actually finish my wool blanket. Pieces have been waiting for a long time. I keep hearing “sew us together” from my craft room.

    Last blanket I made was an acrylic for a baby and it just went right into the washer and dryer. Came out perfectly.

  • I always wash my weaving with non-cream-rinse shampoo. This requires rinsing. Three times. But otherwise this is about my strategy.

    • I mostly weave with Koigu and handspun, and truth-be-told, I front-loader machine wash, tumble for 3-5 minutes on low, both on delicate and cool, and hang to dry.

  • Or, you could use an ironing board, damp towel, and an iron, and have the blanket blocked in about 15 minutes.

  • I wask all my hand knits (wool, alpaca, mohair, cotton, silk, linen) in a small front load washer on wool cycle with cold water and a small amount free and clear liquid detergent. I then lay it out go dry on towels or a large cotton blanket. I have just decided to take that chance with my knits to see how it goes, and so far I have not damaged anything. My biggest project was a 60 x 85” garter stitch blanket. Even wool that felts easily has tolerated this treatment. I can of course not guarantee this will be the result in other washers.

  • I love your adjectives describing the soak( going to order that) and rinsing and the final rollout! Creative and totally fun!

  • It’s several months after Ann’s super-helpful post and I’m finally utilizing her advice… at a hotel! I have a large, gansey-style blanket I knit several years ago but never had the set-up to block, given our one bedroom house with multiple, Union-member cats who are super good at their self-appointed jobs of inspecting all knitting. But, just before my spouse and I went on a vacation/convention this week to Portland, Maine, I remembered the blanket, Ann’s post and that hotel rooms come with two beds, lots of towels and no cats! I’ve just overcome the self-induced mishap of packing too quickly and grabbing the super-sized bottle of hand-sanitizer and not the identical-looking bottle of Soak (much panic but Knit-wit in Portland had some Soak along with their grand, re-opening this morning)… and the blanket is stretched out, quite dry already after its rolling & stomping, on the extra double-bed! A bonus, I’ve got the air-conditioning cranked up (normally we keep it off in a hotel) and that should also suck moisture out of the blanket/air. Now I’m contemplating the color-explosion throw for when we come to this convention again next year!

  • I’ve been searching for the article that Kay (I think) wrote about washing or blocking a blanket using a washing machine. Am I crazy or did I really read it? Earlier this year? Can you help please?

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