Blocking Squares?

[Piper0110]

I'm part of a square exchange right now, and while all squares are to be 7 inches, the ones I'm getting aren't. Some are small, two are significantly larger.

 

I'm thinking I can block the smaller ones enough to make them bigger, but what about the larger ones? Is there any way to make those squares pull in? I'm wondering if they were perhaps ironed, so getting them wet and letting them dry might work, but can you think of any other way to get them a bit smaller?

[lene]

Sorry, I have no answer for you. I've wondered the same thing, though. I have been avoiding making anything that requires me to make pieces then put them together. The only things I've made thus far have been either single pieces, or things in which gauge doesn't matter. I'd be nervous about a swap for 7" squares, because I wonder if I'd be able to make any squares all the same size. <g>

 

Lene'

[Donna]

For the most part, you want your squares to be approximately the correct size. You don't want to do too much blocking to stretch them out. I mostly use blocking to make things straight and even, not for major size changes. As far as the ones that are too big, you can't make them smaller as far as I know. For the ones that are too small, you could do a round of sc around the whole thing to make them a little bigger.

[Piper0110]

Thanks for the advice. I figured there was no way to fix things. Everything's about the same size, a few are a bit curly. I might use the oversized ones in the corners. I feel bad about not using them, since someone put so much time into making them.

[noricum]

One idea is that you could add an appropriately sized border to each square to bring it up to 8", and then attach them together. Using the same colour for each square will also help tie the afghan together.

[Piper0110]

I thought about that. And the idea of taking out ALL THOSE SQUARES again just makes me cringe. But you're right, it would tie it together, plus then I could just whipstitch everything together and it would look all nice and neat. I suppose that's a project I could just do slowly. Maybe one square a night.

 

 

I can do it, I can do it...

[HollyM]

I'm dealing with the same thing right now. I'm >>this<< close to finishing a comfortghan, hopefully by tonight!!!

 

I used one color to edge each square. Most squares I did 2 rows of HDC. That allowed me to use only 1 row (or 1 row w/ a 2nd row of sc) for the squares that were too big or 3 rows on the ones that were too small

 

I had lots of ruffly-ness going on and I wasn't in the mood to do true blocking. What worked pretty well was as I finished the edging on a square, I put it on the dining room table with a stack of heavy books on top it The next day they were a lot more manageable.

 

I'm joining them by using the lacing method on the jpfun.com site (argh! I'm getting an error message that I can't paste things since I'm using mozilla....gotta figure out what the deal is with that ) using the same color that I edged everything in. I'm going to add a border around the whole thing, probably 2-3 rows of HDC, nothing fancy.

 

Holly

[monael]

For the squares that are too large, could you rip out the last row or would that mess up the pattern?