Tag: clapotis

Silky Tweed Clapotis

Silky Tweed Clapotis

This is my fourth Clapotis, in Rowan Silky Tweed. It’s taken me more than a year to knit it, because I kept getting sidetracked by more interesting projects along the way. I wore my Rowan Tapestry clapotis ever such a lot over the winter, but it doesn’t quite go with all my clothes. This nice neutral grey should hopefully fill in the gaps. Although it’s a bit heavier than the Tapestry, the silk gives it a lovely drape.

I knitted this one back-and-forth on a circular needle, and that helped to alleviate the terrible wrist pain I’d had from the previous one. Because you can keep the weight of the weight of the knitting in your lap rather than on the needles, it’s a lot easier to manage.

Silky Tweed Clapotis

I was spurred on to finish this one by the fact that I’m going on holiday soon, and I’m going to be spending quite a lot of time outdoors. I’d rather hoped that in the middle of May I might need to be taking sandals with me, rather than an enormous scarf, but this is England, and the weather’s nothing if not unpredictable. I should probably thankful that I’ve also knitted a matching hat.

Peachy Shawls

Tulips Shawlette

Now that these shawls are finally finished and have reached their recipients, I can safely show them to you all!

The Tulips Shawlette, above, is by Anniken Allis, and the pattern’s in Issue 36 of The Knitter. The moment I saw it, I reached for the first 4-ply yarn I could find in my stash, and started knitting. It was quite a while before I realised that I had no earthly use for a peach lace shawl, but I was enjoying knitting it so much that I didn’t really care. Eventually it occurred to me that it would look lovely on Paul’s grandmother, and it became her Christmas gift.

The yarn is Rowan Cashcotton 4-ply, now discontinued. I usually prefer not to work with cotton because it hurts my hands, but this is soft and lovely. Unfortunately the angora does shed – working with this on my lap made me wonder whether Bond villains need shares in lint rollers, to get rid of all the fluffy white hairs.

Tulips Shawlette

I hadn’t knitted any lace quite as complicated as this before, feather & fan being about my limit. But the two designs fitted together really well (being an 8-row and a 16-row repeat) and the pattern was written out as well as charted. I followed the written instructions for the most part, because I find a row of text easier to keep in my head than a row of symbols. I used a lot of sticky notes to mark my place, and it took me a long time to really understand how the pattern worked.

Tulips Shawlette

I did use the charts for the edging pattern, mostly because I couldn’t seem to get the written instructions to repeat properly. I’m not terribly keen on the edging, it doesn’t seem very definite, somehow. But I do like the shawl as a whole, and I feel a bit braver about working from charts now.

Peach Wall of Shawl

Because the Tulips pattern required a lot of concentration, I wanted another project to work on that was much simpler. I also wanted something that could also work as a lap blanket. This one is Wall of Shawl, by Martina Patricia Munroe. I think this design looks much more interesting in a handspun or multi-coloured yarn, but I thought it would be nice to make a “matching” gift for each of Paul’s grandmothers, and I was really enjoying working with the Cashcotton.

In fact, I was enjoying it right up until I came to knit the edging. That yo row (the decorative holes near the bottom) doubles the stitch count, at which point I thought my head might explode with boredom. I didn’t count the stitches on the final row, because I didn’t want to know!

The only thing I don’t like about this shawl is the way that the edge curls up. It’s a natural feature of stocking stitch, so there’s not much I could have done to prevent it. The pattern suggests knitting the ruffle about 3” long, which probably helps, but I was running out of time and patience. I could also have cast off on the wrong side, which would have turned the edging inwards, rather than out. But the shawl itself is a lovely size, and the fabric drapes beautifully.

I still don’t have any real need for a peach lace shawl, but I have quite a lot of this yarn left, and The Knitter seems to be going through a phase of showing me lots of lovely patterns that I really must knit as soon as I possibly can! I’m resisting the urge at the moment though, while I knit my fifth Clapotis – a nice simple one in Rowan Silky Tweed. After that, perhaps I’ll cast on for something a little bit more complicated.

Noro Clapotis

Noro Clapotis

Every time I knit a Clapotis, I complain all the way through.

“It’s boring!”
“My hands hurt!”
“Maybe I could make it shorter…”
“How much further?”

But every time I’ve finished knitting a Clapotis, I can’t wait to start another one.

This one was started in July, as a birthday present for my mother-in-law. But her birthday came and went, and I was still knitting, so it became her Christmas present instead. It’s made from five skeins of Noro Cash Island, a lovely soft blend of wool and cashmere. It’s beautifully soft and drapes beautifully.

Thankfully it was extremely well received – my mother-in-law is also a knitter (and a much better one than me!), so she appreciates the time and effort that goes into making a gift like this as much as the finished piece itself.

And I may have had a little accident in the John Lewis sale, and bought five skeins of Rowan Silky Tweed, to make a pretty grey one for myself…

Rowan Tapestry Clapotis

Rowan Tapestry Clapotis

Exactly a year since I finished the first one, here’s my second Clapotis!

The yarn, Rowan Tapestry (now discontinued) was a Christmas gift (thanks Jenny!), and I started knitting the day after Boxing Day. Here it is completed, just in time for Easter.

I only made one amendment to the original pattern, and that was to repeat the increase rows five times instead of six. I didn’t count how many times I repeated the straight rows. I simply made a note of how much yarn it took to knit the set-up rows and the increase sections (one ball, as it happened!), and then knitted on (and on…) the straight sections until I had just enough yarn left over to complete the other end. Simple!

The Tapestry looks absolutely beautiful now that it’s finished and blocked. It’s ever so soft, and it catches the light just slightly. It’s 70% Wool and 30% Soybean Protein Fibre, which feels a lot like silk. Unravelling the dropped stitches was a bit of a challenge though, as the 70% wool part of the yarn is quite hairy, and has a tendency to stick to itself. It’s much more satisfying to drop those great big ladders when you have a nice slippery yarn – although it’s a bit more hair-raising to knit, in case you drop a stitch by mistake!

I complained like mad about this while I was actually knitting it. At six feet long it seemed to take forever to knit the straight middle section, and I would be looking at the amount of yarn still left in despair. But despite the mind-crushing, wrist-wrenching boredom, I would definitely knit this pattern again. There is a small part of me that wants to follow Emmylou Valentine’s lead and knit an absolutely ENORMOUS Clapotis… I know it would look amazing, but I’m not completely certain that my poor wrists could handle it. We’ll see.

My First Clapotis.

Clapotis

Now that the birthday gift has been received (only a week late, oops…) I can now reveal my first Clapotis!

I have to confess that I’ve been avoiding making a Clapotis for several years. There are more than ten thousand finished Clapotii listed on Ravelry, and another five thousand people with this project in their to-do queue. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about, and I didn’t want to jump on a giant knitting bandwagon just for the sake of it. So I didn’t knit one. Until now.

The reason this gift was a week late is that I spent many, many evenings knitting swatches for scarves and then unravelling them again. I wanted to make a companion gift to go with these Slither gloves, so I was originally thinking of something stripy, or perhaps an intarsia or fairisle design that would make the most of the three colours. In the end I couldn’t come up with anything that looked nice on both sides (I’m fussy about that in a scarf), so I started looking for any kind of scarf or wrap that could be made with the amount of wool that I had.

Clapotis turned out to fit the bill perfectly, and I’m glad it did!

I couldn’t have done it though, without the help of Stricklady‘s handy Clapotis Chart. She breaks down each section of the scarf and charts exactly where to place your markers, and how many repeats you need to make. Using this, I could keep track of which row I was working on, and figure out exactly where to change the colours so that I could be sure I’d have enough yarn to reach the other end. Thank you, Stricklady!

While I was out walking at the weekend, chasing geese with the camera, I could have done with a Clapotis of my very own. It’s perfect for this in-between weather – not quite warm enough to go without a coat, but not quite cold enough to want to be completely bundled up. I might have to have a little hunt through my wool stash, and see what I can find…