This happens with every piece I block – I take my garment or accessory off of the blocking tiles and it looks so nice and crisp, BUT…I have creases at each side. It’s inevitable with wet blocking, and most of the time the creases just fade away with wear. But if they are really bugging you or they seem to effect how your piece is draping, one suggestion I have is to steam them out!
I did this recently with my new Low-key Cowl (a little accessory piece inspired by my Low-key vest). I wanted to wear my Low-key cowl a little asymmetrically so that the side split hems actually fell a bit more towards the center and not exactly at the sides – here’s a picture of me wearing the final version in yellow so you can see what I mean:
So when I laid it out to dry during my wet-blocking process, I had it in this askew position (note: for a tutorial of how I wet-block, check out my post here):
So of course I wound up having creases at each of those sides, that looked like this:
What I didn’t like about the crease was that it limited how I could wear the cowl. If I always wore it asymmetrically, then the crease would be fine because it would always be at the sides. But if I wanted to change it up and wear it with the split hems at the sides, then I’d have this big crease running right down the center front. So it was time to do a little hand-steaming to erase those creases away! Here is what it looked like after I steamed it:
Like magic the crease is gone! And it took about 20 seconds to do. The steamer in the picture is actual a new purchase of mine – this is only maybe the 5th time I’ve used it, but so far I’ve been really happy with it. It’s the Conair Turbo Extreme Steam Hand Held Fabric Steamer. It’s a bit pricier than my previous one, but the thing I like is that I can hold it horizontally and the water doesn’t spill all over the place. Plus it has multiple steaming settings, so depending on how delicate my fabric is I can adjust the level of steam. Let me show you how I used it in this example:
Once the steamer was ready to go, I simply hovered it over the crease area as pictured above (around 1/2″ above or so) and I just keep moving the steamer back and forth, up and down all along the crease, as pictured below (it’s important to keep the steamer moving).
It didn’t take much – as I said, I think maybe 20 seconds and the crease was all gone. As you hover over the fabric, you can also use your other hand to manipulate the fabric a bit to smooth things out (or put your steamer down for a bit and use both hands). Every fiber is different so start with a small section first and test it out.
If you don’t have a hand-steamer, you can still try this method but with a regular iron. If you have a steamer iron, just hover the iron over the knit (do not put the iron directly on the fabric) allowing the steam to come out, then put the iron aside and with your hands pat/shape the fabric to see if the steam is helping to relax the crease.
I hope this information about blocking and steaming out your creases is helpful, whether you’re working on the Low-key cowl or any other project!