How do you block a hat???

[yarnrainbow]

I've made hats before but none I thought really needed to be blocked. I'm making one now as part of a Christmas gift for my niece and, since it's made of a natural fiber (baby alpaca), I feel like it will need to be blocked but I'm not sure how to go about it. It's knitted in the round (vs flat and then seamed) and I'm not sure how to go about blocking it. Any suggestions/tips?

[suzeeq]

You don't really need to block things much beyond washing and laying flat to dry. That will even out the sts and unless it's lace, that's all you need to do.

[Ingrid]

Balloon?

[kmaclean]

I've used the balloon method before, as Ingrid suggested. I found that it worked well.

I just washed the hat gently, then placed the hat over the balloon as I inflated it. I left the hat over the balloon to dry, and it helped to make sure that everything dried straight and kept it's proper shape.

Just make sure that you don't over-inflate your balloon ... you don't want to stretch out your hat! You have to remember that your hat will keep the shape that you blocked it in (at least to some extent), so if it dries overly stretched out it will stay like that. So only inflate your balloon until it just fits inside your hat (unless you're trying to stretch it out a little I suppose, but I'm assuming that you've knit it to the correct size).

Good luck!