trying to determine blocking size for a poncho knit it two rectangles

mcdough4 wrote

on Aug 9, 2012 4:00 PM

Hello,

I just finished knitting two cabled rectangles which will be joined to make a poncho. The pattern does not specify what size I should block this; only that the finished size is 28" (no idea what that measurement refers to). How do I determine what measurements I should block these two pieces to?  Any ideas?  The pattern is "Arrowhead Poncho", if that helps. 

Thank you.

salmonmac wrote

on Aug 10, 2012 4:34 AM

Very good looking poncho! There are at least 2 things you can try. The instructions tell you to knit until the lengh of the piece is 28" for the smaller size and that's the same as the smaller finished size. So length should block to 28". The gauge tells you 14sts per 4" and if you cast on 66sts, that works out to about 18" wide. Of course the cables are going to pull that in a bit but about 17" wide should be good. You can also stretch it out on the blocking board and see what looks nice to you, what opens the cables but doesn't stretch things too much. Or you can pin the 2 pieces together and see how it looks on. Check the length and width that way.