I haven't ever blocked anything before. I'm making a wool scarf right now that I think will be much better if I block it. I'm also starting some lace stuff, and supposedly it's much better if you block it. So, I'm researching blocking. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how this works. I don't have carpet (and even if I did, I have dogs so no fabric items can make it on my floor w/out a healthy collection of dog hairs). I haven't really looked at the boards much yet. But where do I put this thing? I guess I need a big empty space I can keep it while it dries? My house is so full of stuff - my ILs are living with us - that we don't have an inch of free space anywhere. How does someone without much space go about blocking?

I remember one of the gals on the board saying she blocks on her bed. I have done that as well and I do have floor space so I am lucky. Or lazy and haven't blocked as much as I should.
Here is a decent little article I saw when I googled "blocking knitting"

http://knitting.about.com/od/learntoknit/a/blocking_knits.htm

I also have your dog and carpet issues. I lay down a towel or towels as the case may be.

If you use a steamer it won't take long to dry and you can block it in sections. There are some that aren't too expensive and have a large enough resevior to block, I got this one, http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4360372 . Yes it's OK to block wool with steam, it's the agitation that causes felting.

I recently needed to block a shawl. My sweater screens were nowhere near large enough so I used my bed. After soaking the shawl I wrapped it in a towel and walked on it. I then rewrapped it in a dry section of the towel and walked on it again. It was just damp. I pinned it to the bed and opened a window to let in a breeze and it was dry in under 2 hours. This was lace weight wool yarn, heavier yarn would take longer. You could also position a fan to blow across the scarf to speed up drying time.

I pinned it to the bed
Probably not a good idea for those of us with waterbeds I bet it would take a lot longer to dry :rofl:

LOL, Mike. What a vision!

Question, though, because I'm with SBG - haven't blocked anything yet. I have a baby pattern book and in it the author says that she doesn't block the sweaters she makes for her grandson because she wants them to look "handmade." Do you always block? Sometimes, and if so, how do you choose what to block and what doesn't need blocking? Are there different blocking techniques for different fabrics? i.e., I'm making a sweater out of 100% cotton; do I block it the same way, say, PlantGoddess blocked her scarf???

For a cotton sweater, I'd wash it and dry it. That would even out the stitches, another reason for blocking. You can machine wash and dry part way in the dryer, then lay flat to finish.

For my sweaters and wool socks I have a sweater screen. It's just a square plastic tube frame with nylon screen stretched across it. It lays over my bathtub. I lay my sweaters out on it and just kind of stretch and push it into shape with minimal wrinkles. I'm sure there are a number of inexpensive ways to lay a sweater out to dry.