I have a confession. Blocking scares me. It just seems like so many things could go wrong, and there’s so much setup necessary, and so for a while, I just didn’t do it. But then I started on these Superhero Squares, and they started turning out not quite square, so I finally had to tough it out and block them.

I’ve made the squares with Red Heart Super Saver 100% Acrylic yarn, so I was nervous about messing up the blocking and ruining all my hard work, but with this method, it seems like that’s pretty hard to do.

To block, I use Hephaestus Blocking Boards and Clover Blocking Pins.

I’ve read many places that there are other cheaper ones you can find, but wanting to block with an iron, I was so worried about getting some knock-off brand and having colors from the mats stain my yarn, or getting pins that would rust and ruin it. I decided to stick with brands I knew and had seen other recommendations for, and have been so far pleased with them. The only negative I’ve found with these boards is that the lines don’t always match up exactly for every board combination. As you can see in the photos below, where the boards connect, the lines aren’t perfect. However, they aren’t bad enough that they’ve bothered me, or made me feel like I can’t accurately line things up on the boards, which is a huge perk of having the lines in the first place.

I forgot to take a picture before pinning, so you can’t see exactly how much I had to stretch it, but here it’s covering 14×14 blocks on the mat, and when I first laid it down, it was close to 14 across, but only about 12 down, so it took a little stretching, but was fine. The above photo with Batman shows a comparison between the blocked Superman and un-blocked Batman squares. To make sure it stretched evenly, I started by pinning the four corners, then pinning in the middle of each side, then adding around without getting too many on one side before adding to the other sides. I used almost an entire box of the Clover pins for just one square, but it’s better to use too many than too few. I probably could have done even more, as you can still see a little bit of a ripple around the edges.

The most important thing to remember when you’re blocking with an iron is that you don’t actually want to touch the iron to the yarn, you just want to let the steam set it in place. As an extra precaution, you can cover the piece with a dampened thin cotton towel. Typically a kitchen-type towel would be best, but none of mine were large enough, so I used one of my Turkish towels.

When using the iron, keep it on a high enough setting to get lots of steam, and make sure you refill the iron if the water starts to run low. Mine did after about the third square, because you want a lot of steam. Hold the iron just above the towel without touching, letting it hover over the same spot for at least 10-15 seconds before moving on. The first time I used this method, I went too fast, and the project looked blocked, but then I had to re-do it after it slowly shrunk back to the original smaller rectangle. You don’t want to hold it over the same spot forever, but don’t just speed over either. Once you’ve finished with the iron, remove the towel, and let the piece sit and cool before un-pinning.

And voila! It’s now a square instead of a rectangle, and it looks just about the same as before but better! If you are nervous about blocking, like I was, feel free to ask questions in the comments below, or on any of my social media pages.