For steam blocking do you use an iron or do you use a hand held steamer? If you use either one what is your method and what brand do you use?

I generally wet block. But I notice natural fibers tend to "grow". Does this happen with steaming? Is this a reflection of my knitting? Like maybe it's too tight and then it stretches later. I'm wondering if that can be avoided. Though sometimes I use it to my advantage-like the other day I made a scarf out of chunky alpaca- but I had only two skeins, so I made it rather skinny and it ended up 4ft long. After wet blocking it was 5 ft long-perfect!

So any thoughts on the steaming and the "growth" of natural fibers would be appreciated.

PS- I wanted to make this a poll but how do I do that with our new system?? I used to know how.

I don't really like to block and I totally half @$$ it :teehee:. I just lay it as flat as i can and take a hand towel (nothing too thick) lay it on top and use a regular iron on it's steam setting and i just go over it and hope for the best. So far nothing horrible has happened. I've also had similar experiences with the stretching or loosening of the fiber were i steam iron it when it's wet. If i want it to loosen or stretch a lot i'll go over it a few times pressing down a little bit and moving the iron in the direction i want it to stretch in. But if i really don't want a lot of stretch or loosening i just go over everything really lightly and quickly.

Oh and to add a poll you click the "new thread" button and you're on the page were you type in your post you will see at the bottom right above the button to post your thread a box you can check off to add a poll to your post.

Oh and to add a poll you click the "new thread" button and you're on the page were you type in your post you will see at the bottom right above the button to post your thread a box you can check off to add a poll to your post.

I did that and nothing happened, there was no box to fill in with the questions.
Thanks for replying.