Sock blockers for children’s socks

Want to see something cute?  As you’ll know, the free pattern for this year’s Winter Haven KAL is the Basic 4ply Children’s Socks pattern and look what I’ve got …

Oh, all those tiny sock blockers! ❤️

They were made by Vicky of D19EcoFriendlyLife who has made most of the sock blockers that I use.  She’s based in Ukraine and is still making and sending out blockers, and also designs sock patterns of her own these days.  She messaged me before I had posted my children’s socks pattern to ask me if I would like some of her new range of tiny blockers and the timing couldn’t have been better … until the parcel got delayed between Ukraine and here, thanks to one or two things that are going on in the world right now.  Luckily, I had a set of Vicky’s adjustable children’s blockers to show off my little socks – and then all of these other ones arrived after Christmas – and it felt like Christmas opening up the package, I can tell you!

She has sent me blockers in every size from preemie (oh, so tiny!) to 15cm which is about 4-6 years, and just like all of the other blockers that she has sent me, they are beautifully made and finished.

As you can see below, she also makes adjustable ones, but sometimes it’s nice to have blockers in a particular size.

Do you need to use blockers for children’s socks – or indeed, any socks?

The short answer is no, you don’t.  They’re a “nice to have” but not essential; the blocking only lasts until the socks are washed and then they would need to be re-blocked whilst they were drying … but blocking is certainly a nice thing to do if you are giving the socks away or taking photographs of them.

You can see how smooth and flat the socks are, and how even the stitches look once they’ve been washed and blocked – they definitely make a better picture for you to see here than what they looked like straight off my needles.  However, if I had a small person jumping up and down at my side waiting to put them on, I would not insist on washing and drying them first as you can block socks perfectly well on your feet!

“Why are you showing them to us, then?”, you might ask.

Well, for as many people who don’t want to block socks, there are as many who do and I think it’s amazing that here in my hands are sock blockers for so many different sizes!  Children’s feet grow so quickly that you can be knitting them on a regular basis, either for your own family or for gifts, and there’s no doubt that blocked socks look very professional – just the thing if you really want to up your sock-knitting superstar game! 🙂

Blocking socks is really easy – just think of it as giving them a bit of a soak and then putting them out to dry!  It’s not a bad thing to wash socks before you wear them or gift them anyway, especially if they have been well-travelled socks whilst you’ve been knitting them, or you may have picked up extra pet hairs that aren’t knitted in …

I’m going to write another couple of blog posts about using blockers and how to block socks without them so look out for those coming up, but I just wanted to show you these sweet tiny ones whilst the Basic 4ply Children’s Socks pattern is still my latest pattern release 🙂