1, 2, 3... cla-po-tee

I am a little sad to be finis with my Clapotis.
I now completely understand why there are knitters out there (like Very Pink) who have knit 10.

The pattern is not totally mindless, but it's simple enough to "multi-task knit" and pick up/put down easily.
I wanted to keep myself from auto-piloting though (which I have a strong tendency to do), so I purled the "drop stitches" AND used stitch markers. Even still... I did make a couple mistakes to let the soul out.



The Clapotis pattern has a rhythm of 3 and 3 [knit, knit, knit then twist, knit (or purl), twist] - the little voice in my head kept repeating "1, 2, 3... cla - po - tee" as I went along.
Or at least it did after I clued into the fact that it was "cla-po-tee" and not "cla-pot-isss" - duh!
::smacks forehead::

Many of my previous projects have been superwash, so this was the first time I used spit splicing (or to be a little less crude - a felted join) on a project, and all I can say about it is: Wow! That totally rocks!



Pattern: Clapotis
Yarn: Blue Sky 100% Alpaca
Needles: US 5
Finished size: 62" long, 16" wide
Modifications: 5 increase repeats, 15 straight section repeats
[Ravelry]

I think that the initial skein squish of the alpaca fooled me a bit into thinking if would be a softer finished scarf. I am not a scratchy wool lover. In fact I am a fairly recent animal fiber convert - about the same time I started knitting a year and a half ago. Don't get me wrong, it is soft - but when I put it around my neck there is a little scratchy hair feeling to it. I may just have SNS (sensitive neck syndrome) - I wonder if there is something I can take for that.
The alpaca is also very warm, AND it's July - so I am reserving judgment for when I can really take it out for a test drive.

Although there is no more fun, bouncy feeling now that I have blocked it - I really like the look of blocked vs. unblocked... and it has fabulous weight and drape.



If I ever do make another Clapotis (which is highly probable) I think I will choose a varigated yarn. I find it hard to believe that I am saying this - since I feel horribly scarred by pooling with varigated yarns - but I really like the effect of color changes with the dropped stitches - like here, here, here, here and here.

All in all, I'm a happy clap-er.