collage

collage

Friday, September 13, 2013

I made a blocking board!

So I've always wanted a place to safely block my knits. The bed or the carpet, or a layer of garbage bags on the basement floor have all worked, but not as efficiently as I'd like. The other day I read Jane Richmond's post on luvinthemommyhood and it got my brain working. I did a little online research and was about to run out to buy some foam core when I remembered my husband had this stuff in a corner of the garage:



I proceeded to confiscate it for my needs. and then set out to see what I had in my stash of stuff that I could use to turn it into something great. 

You will need:

One sheet of this Styrofoam or two sheets of foam core (or whatever size you require)
Packing tape
a box cutter or a bread knife
2 yards (approx) of fabric I used a cheapo 1 inch check from Joann's
Pins

I started by cutting down the sheets to my desired size, which was 45 inches long by the width of the board. (this ended up being too big to cover with the width of my fabric so I cut it down more later)


Then I taped them together with the packing tape. The tongue and groove aspect of this insulation made it super easy to get them snug. 

this pic was before I cut a little more off

Once I had the shape I wanted, I layed out the fabric (which had been pre-washed) and basically eyeballed it square on the board. Then I used my T-pins to pin it in place so I could flip the board over.



 This worked reasonably well. It kept the fabric from shifting too terribly, but you'll see later, that it's not perfect!  Once it was flipped onto the coffee table,  I wrapped the fabric around to the back as tightly as I could and taped it in place. I used my son's toy spatula to smooth the tape down and make sure it was really stuck.



And that was that. It's not fancy, but it was pretty cheap. I don't know what my husband paid for the foam board but I know it wasn't much. The fabric was around $6 and the packing tape we had laying around.  I won't feel terrible when it wears out and I have to do it again, because I know I can reuse the fabric.

I can't wait to use this thing to pin out my shawl, which I hope will be completed soon! YAY!


So I thank Jane Richmond for the kick she gave me to make this, even though her blocking screens look much more amazing and longer lasting than this thing.




No comments:

Post a Comment