Aug 31, 2007

May I Present: Zee Clapotis

Within the knitting community there are definite sub-communities. Groups of us who knit certain projects, or repeatedly use certain techniques and patterns. Sock knitters, lace knitters, felting fanatics...and Those Who Have Knit the Clapotis. Since Kate Gilbert's Clapotis pattern came out in 2004, I'm going to guess that it has been knit tens of thousands of times in any yarn you can imagine. I didn't even try to resist the call.
My good friend Sean confirmed my guess that the Atacama alpaca I had in my stash would work well for this pattern, and he was so right. (All photos enlarge on click)


Finished Clapotis 083107 005
Needles: Knit Picks Options US 7 (4.5mm), 32" cable
Cast on 7/10/07 - Cast off 8/30/07

Finished Clapotis 083107 010
73" long x 25.5" wide when slightly stretched
I knit 5 extra increase and decrease repeats.I knit the straight rows as in the pattern.

Finished Clapotis 083107 008
Auracania Atacama Alpaca - 100% Alpaca (110yds per 50g skein); Color #506
Dropping the stitches took extra work because the alpaca fibers are anything but slippery.
To create the ladders I had to manually take each stitch down row-by-row. It was worth it.

Finished Clapotis Hijab Style
I love the length on this. I can have my ears, arms and most of my back covered all at once.
These photos show the Clapotis unblocked, and I think it will stay that way.


Finished Clapotis with Shawl Pin
I used a row by row spreadsheet of the pattern to keep on track. I used the suggestion to purl the stitches that were to be dropped, which worked great, but I still used stitch markers all the way across -just in case.

Finished Clapotis Back View B&W
Yarn Sources: 6 balls at Knit New York (January 2007); 4 balls from EBay (June 2007)
Used 9 balls total (990 yards)

Elephant Shawl Pin
Silver & Wood Elephant Shawl Pin
Source: Stitches Midwest (I have misplaced the vendor's name)

Finished Clapotis 083107 007

There are a few other photos available in a slideshow here. As always, if you're planning to make one and I can help in any way, let me know. I've got the row by row instructions available for sharing.

Once again, a huge thank you to my wonderful hubby for not only taking photos of this project, but for going that extra step by complementing this project profusely and actually asking me if I was ready to have some pictures taken of it this morning. I'm a lucky lucky girl.