Blocking Time

I'd like to thank everyone that left a comment with suggestions on creating a blocking board.

Based on the suggestions, I went looking for either cork board squares or some of those exercise mats that fit together like puzzle pieces.

I only went to one store, Wal-Mart, so I didn't do much comparison shopping I was really into getting something quick that would work.

I found the cork squares in the office section. Each piece of cork was a 12 inch square. Each package had 4 pieces and was just under $6.

I looked in the sport-camping section and didn't see any of those little modular mats that I thought looked pretty neat. I liked the idea of being able to move the pieces around to custom shape the board layout for each project. But, they didn't have any of those.

I did see several yoga mats and thought about one of those for a second, but those were all over ten dollars. I really didn't want to spend a lot of money, so I ended up buying a camping mat. It is a blue blue foam material that is about a 1/2 thick and about 20" wide and 74" long.

You could easily cut it into smaller pieces, but this one sits nicely on my kitchen island. The nice thing is that it was just under $6 and I can roll it up and stick it in the laundry room. I thought it might hold up a little longer than the cork. The cork wasn't as thick as the foam.



I stuck masking tape on the mat in the shape and size I wanted the lizard ridge squares to be and started blocking. The pattern suggesting steam blocking, but I decided to use a little wool wash and soak. I'm able to block five squares at a time and I should have them all blocked in a another day. Then I'll have to decide on a layout. I hope to get some of that done this weekend. Then it's onto seaming.

Oh, I've been playing around with my blog template just a little. So if you drop by and something doesn't look right let me know - I'll try and fix it.