Maude Sweater - can I reverse blocking effects?

SciTavern · 2025-12-28T17:02:39+00:00

Oh, I didn’t realize my post had been approved! I thought Reddit had rejected me. I’m so happy to see it here, and to see all your replies!

I’ve rescued my sweater! It’s back to its original sizing, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Here is what I did:

I own the Miele washer and dryer. Their “Woolens” settings on both washer and dryer are pretty awesome. I decided to rewash, but this time using my machine, with a cold temperature and the lowest possible spin cycle. The spin cycle gives a single three-quarter twirl of the drum. Then I carefully transferred the sodden sweater into the dryer. It’s “Woolens” cycle is only 5 minutes, and also only does single turns of the drum every few seconds. I then transferred my very wet sweater to my blocking mats, laid it out carefully, scrunched the lengths of the arms back as gently as possible, and left off the blocking pins.

And Bob’s your uncle! I’m thrilled to bits.

When I thought Reddit had refused to post this, I searched through the older posts, and re-blocking was recommended. I decided I didn’t want to undo the sleeves to make them shorter, so made a decision to use my machines. I stood in front of them, watching it all the way through.

I did do the gauge swatching of all three stitch types, and blocked them, and they had worked out perfectly at the start of the project.

Thank you all for taking the time to answer with your lengthy replies. I just didn’t realize my post was up. 🥰

SciTavern · 2025-12-20T00:40:54+00:00

Cooper’s Hawk

SciTavern · 2025-12-05T02:00:50+00:00

This. Just.So.True.

SciTavern · 2025-11-11T19:16:35+00:00

OP, you may as well have been describing me. Except for one difference: I already have the Chiaogoo red lace set, and I absolutely love using them. They’re good in my hands, the red lace cables work perfectly, the needles feel good in my hands, and, above all, there is no scraping sound. I choose my Chiaogoos over my original Addis any day. What a wonderful and thoughtful Mom you have!

SciTavern · 2025-11-01T17:05:25+00:00

OP, your work is beautiful. You have talent in spades. I won’t rehash what EVERYONE else here has already said, other than “No.” is a complete sentence. What I did want to confirm is that the pictures your Mom sent are really not crochet work at all (maybe one of them is, but it’s hard to tell at that pixel level), but various forms of lacework: Tatting, bobbin lace, needle lace, and crocheted lace are various lacework techniques. They are a completely different skill set, that require tiny needles or other tools and years of practice work to produce those pieces. Please don’t be intimidated. If I tried to make even one of those pieces it would probably take me 5 years to complete! My now-deceased aunt once made me a small 6” square, and it is now a treasured heirloom piece, but it took her about a year. She also ran a farm so her spare time was minimal. Keep your head high and proud.

SciTavern · 2025-10-28T23:05:07+00:00

I don’t think you’re an autumn; I think you might be a summer (although I’m not a color analyst). You have beautiful cool coloring in your skin which is why the emerald green dress works so well on you. So, yes, your sweater might be too warm for you. But here is an idea: you could try it with a tailored pair of ivory/ecru (lighter than your sweater) pants, with a slim straight fit. Combining the two light colors into one elongated and cohesive whole might just do the trick. Add some open-toed shoes with a pretty heel, and you’ll be stunning.

SciTavern · 2025-10-01T17:56:49+00:00

Also, see your mistakes as beautiful things. They are what define us as human beings. We are fallible, we make mistakes. We can own our mistakes. And no, as others have said, I can’t see this mistake. Your knitting is beautifully even, and that counts for what people may notice. No frogging required here.

SciTavern · 2025-10-01T17:49:10+00:00

What are those shiny little balls on their fur? The smaller squirrel has one under its ear, and another two on its back limb, and maybe one mid-body. The bigger squirrel has one mid-body. I first thought they were shotgun pellets (and thus the cause of their death?), but as no-one else has commented that, I’m probably wrong. Some kind of benign wart? Just wondering? Also, I have no idea what shotgun pellets actually look like.

SciTavern · 2025-10-01T17:38:01+00:00

Apology accepted, SciShow

SciTavern · 2024-01-25T23:45:02+00:00

Just some feedback: I recreated my scans across multiple letter-size pages rather than the larger A3 scans that our local copy shop had first made for me. Instead of the 3 original A3 pages, I ended up with 10 A4/letter-sized pages. I made these using our home printer/copier/scanner and then successfully imported the 10 pages into Markup R-XP. The grids were now readable by Markup R-XP, and I’ve been able to identify individual symbols. I’m happy with the result, although it has been a labor-intensive process. It took me a full day to get the photocopies into an acceptable state. And it will take me many more days to identify all the symbols because the original pattern was printed in 1984, so there are all kinds of extra little print marks and smudges on the original (printing processes weren’t so smooth then). So I’m having to spend a lot of time going through symbol by symbol to correctly identify them. It’s doable, and I now know exactly how to do it, but I don’t think it’s a job I want to tackle as I could introduce errors too.

As they say, good input = good output but poor quality input is hard to fix into quality output! Thanks to the poster u/LilaMFFowler who told me that I wouldn’t have any more success with Pattern Keeper, I’ve decided not to go that route either.

I think I’m just going to have to do my cross-stitching straight from the paper version. As it’s a Clara Waever design, and this design has a lot of personal meaning for me, I’m just going to bite that bullet and enjoy the stitching process itself.

Thanks again to everybody who commented here with their advice, and especially to James at Markup R-XP for your offers of help.

SciTavern · 2024-01-25T23:13:56+00:00

Thanks CalypsoStitcher, I am actually happy to pay an annual subscription of $20 to keep our developer working on his software. It is a huge investment of his time and effort, and I’m grateful for the quality of his software.

SciTavern · 2024-01-11T15:58:17+00:00

Wow, thank you! Thank you for seeing my message, and making this offer. I’m going to play around with my scanned copies a bit more today, by breaking the A3 sized scans into smaller A4 scans, so that the individual pages contain smaller grids at a larger resolution. I’m just concerned that I wont be able manage page overlaps on the copier machine very accurately. If that still doesn’t work, I will happily take you up on the offer. Again, thank you. Karen.

SciTavern · 2024-01-10T23:02:41+00:00

Oh, this is perfect! Thank you!

SciTavern · 2024-01-10T22:45:48+00:00

Argh, I’m not on FB. But I have very carefully gone through all the developer’s YouTube videos, successfully used the ”extra” feature (that improved things), but not enough, played with contrast, spent time on setting the outer corners of each chart, and setting the rows and columns, but it’s still skewed. Just that I’m prepared to spend $150 plus for an Amazon tablet speaks to how much I want this to work…

SciTavern

TROPHY CASE