A very nearly finished object

While we were on a break a couple of weeks before the baby arrived, I started knitting a little vest for my nearly 2-year-old. I finished the knitting 8 days later (a small miracle in itself), and since then it's been hybernating on my craft table waiting to be blocked.

Today I finally managed it!

There were a few conditions that needed to be met for me to block it: a blocking surface needed to be sourced, and the weather needed to be good! Fortunately for me (and my daughter), today those conditions were very satisfactorily met.

Yesterday I bought some large foam floor-mat-pieces to act as blocking boards (completely inspired by/copied from Helen of Bellsknits who talked about her own camping-mat-blocking-boards AGES ago), and the weather today is lovely and sunny, and the last day that we're likely to have like this for at least a week.

Typically, I'm blocking by guesswork rather than knowledge, never having wet-blocked anything before. I figure that I want the shoulder straps and neckline to sit properly, the vertical knitting lines to sit vaguely straight, and the bottom cast-off row to sit kind of flat rather than kinking up all over the place. Who knows at this point whether I've succeeded? I'll find out before too long, I'm sure.

Do you block your knitting? If you do, what's your approach? Hints and tips will be enthusiastically received!!

Hopefully I'll have fully finished, modeled photos with project details in the next week or so.

P.S. If you're wondering what the beans are for, they're acting as weights to stop the mat blowing off the top of the clothes rack it's resting on to keep it out of reach of inquisitive chooks...