New blocking tool: Signature Blocking Cloth

My friends at Signature have recently released a new product: a blocking cloth. It's got grid-lines woven in, at one inch intervals.

I love this thing. I don't know about you, but I struggle with straight lines. Especially when pinning out pieces for blocking.

This week, I blocked a tank top for a friend of mine. It has a lovely lace edge, and I offered to block it so that the points of the scallops were nicely shaped. (She doesn't have the pins and mats that I do.)

I carefully pinned it out by hand, eyeing the edge to make it straight.

I unpinned it, and got an edge that I thought looked pretty good, until I laid it on the blocking cloth. Holy curvy edge, Batman!

So I repinned it, using the 1 inch gridlines as a guide.

Look, Ma! A straight edge. In addition, the grid provided me a very easy way to make sure I had pinned the piece out to the right width, too.

Brilliant.

The cloth is colorfast and washable, and sits nicely on top of your blocking mats (or floor, or bed, or whatever you're using for a blocking surface).

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My blocking surface?

Yup, that's the dog's crate.

This is the sort of thing you do when you live in an apartment. (And yes, we do move the mat when the dog is actually in the crate.)