Using a Hairdryer for Blocking Your Work

In the old days knitting patterns used to ask you to press the knitting before sewing, but nowadays with acrylic yarn pressing the knitting crushes the work and spoils it.

I have recently learned of blocking work with a hairdryer. With this technique, you don’t wet the knitting at all, you just pin out in the position you’d like the work to be, and then you heat with a hairdryer. Warm up the knitting and allow it to cool before removing the pins.

I had my hairdryer on the hottest setting and the slowest blow to stop the work from moving around too much. Don’t let the nozzle of the hairdryer touch the work.

It’s a great tip for blocking acrylic yarns such as Stylecraft Special DK or Hayfield Bonus DK.

What is great about this method of blocking is that you don’t have to wait whilst the knitting dries and it’s so quick that if you find it's not quite done the job, you can easily do it again. Plus, if you have a ‘blow cold’ setting on the hair dryer, you could even speed up the cooling time too.

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