Hi Everyone!
I need some help
I am an avid knitter but have never knitted anything before now that needed to be blocked
I am knitting a tablecloth (lace) and its acrylic yarn
Can you block acrylic yarn? I am only about 20 rounds into it, so if I can’t I can frog it and go buy different yarn
Not really – you can steam it a bit to set it, but you can’t really do the same sort of elasticky stretching out like with lace anything-else-but-acrylic sort of thing…
It doesn’t block like wool, but you can steam it with it pinned out, and that will relax the sts, open up the pattern and be permanent, unlike wool which has to be blocked everytime you wash it.
You could use slightly (like, half a size if not a quarter) bigger needles to help open up the pattern, maybe? A lot of lace patterns depend on that “opening up” of the yarn to look right…
I knit lace with acrylic yarn, and go up a couple sizes beyond what’s in the pattern. It’s usually a worsted, so I use 7 or 7.5mm or sometimes US11s.