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First of all, a shout out to everyone who commented last week that they are still following along with the lessons! I haven’t had the time to reply to each comment individually, but thank you for letting me know you are still following the lessons – there were a lot of you!

And don’t forget that if you finish your lapghan by week 12 and you send a picture of it to me, you will be entered into a draw for a gift of crochet goodies!!

So we are done our squares! I don’t know how many you would have right now, it would depend on if you made 2 of each pattern each week, or one. You want to have enough to make a rectangle, say 4 squares x 3 squares. If you are at an uneven number, you will either want to go back and make a couple extra squares from the patterns we’ve had, or you could always leave out some of the squares you’ve made. Or, if you are feeling ambitious, check out this site for a listing of 7″ squares, and try a few new ones!

This week we will go over making our squares look better and getting them ready to seam together.

Weaving in Loose Ends

So, now we are done our squares and they all have long ends hanging from them – so its time to weave those ends in. To do this, you will need a large blunt end yarn needle, you can get them from any craft store in the yarn section for a dollar (they can be metal or plastic).

There are a couple of different methods you can use to weave in your ends. To weave in your ends at the top of your work, you will simply weave the yarn under the top chain back and forth.

To weave in the end in the middle of your work (good for color change ends), you can insert your needles down through the middle of your vertical stitches and pull the yarn into the stitch.

Both of these methods are shown in the video from nexstitch.com.

Yet another method is to weave the ends under the stitches moving horizontally. This picture from about.com explains it perfectly:

So there you have it! Now get on weaving those ends in

Blocking

Blocking is done before you seam your squares together. It helps to relax and even out your stitches, as well as shape your finished object. You can also stretch out your projects if they aren’t quite the size you were looking for – great for squares

I’m going to describe my favorite method of blocking crochet projects. You will need a stiff board with a soft surface (ie an ironing board works perfectly), a spray bottle of water and some rust proof pins. You can make your own blocking board by taking a piece of wood, laying cotton or polyester batting on top (like the stuff you would use to make a quilt), cover it with fabric and staple the fabric onto the underside of the board. I make a lot of squares to use up leftover yarn, so I drew 7″ squares on the fabric, so I knew exactly what to stretch them to without having to constantly measure while pinning.
Start by pinning your project onto the board into the shape you want. Stretch out any sides you need to in order to straighten them, or to get the square into the size you are looking for. Use lots of pins Once you have it pinned, spray the square with water until it is moderately wet. That’s it!! Let the square dry completely, and when you take it off the board it will be in the exact shape you blocked it to!

There are other methods of blocking as well, including submerging your squares and then pinning them wet, or steam blocking with an iron (DON’T iron your actual square – ask me how I know ). But I found the method I describes works the best!

So this week, weave in all your ends and block your squares! Next week we will be putting the lapghan together!!!