Finally... a Clapotis!
So I realized that it probably takes most people about a week to 10 days to finish this project, but lo and behold, it wouldn't be a project at Chez Spaz if it didn't look like this at some point. This was taken on 1/31. Note that at least this time, I had enough sense to remember to put in a lifeline. I debated about this one for a while actually. I had changed needle sizes and the ball looked quite large for some reason and I just thought, well heck, maybe changing gauge will be enough to lengthen the scarf without altering the number of increase repeats. I'll go another repeat. I should learn to never trust my judgment on these things.
I have to say that I've become trusted friends with my ball winder. With the number of times that my ball winder has turned a mass of ramen into something more manageable, I'd have to be. I should get it a Christmas present... And with as much as I trusted my ball winder, I never thought that shortly after this picture, it would conspire against me to be the Stupidest Thing I Did This Week*.
* Blatant swipe of a brilliant idea by Carrie over at Every Word's a Purl. She does an occassional, but hilarious series of the Dumbest Thing I Did this Week. See Here for an example.
So, have you ever thought, darn... I wish I could wind my yarn barf back into a center pull ball with my WIP still attached and not have to work from the outside of the ball. Well, I'm here to tell you that yes, you probably can do this if you wind by hand (I haven't tried), but please, don't try this with your ball winder. I did. It doesn't work.
If I must elaborate, I attached the yarn going up to my Clap-in-progress to the winder, strung the yarn through the guide, and started to crank. I quickly realized that my winder was going to try to wind from both ends (and frog the Clap) so I clamped down on my WIP end. Well, it didn't wind around the spool, but all that turning had to do something. A couple dozen cranks later, I found out what: my beautiful flat ribbon yarn turned into a dense single ply tube. Yes, my first experience with spinning, and wow was that effective. An hour later, I managed to de-spin less than a yard's worth of yarn and start working again from the outside of the re-wound ball.
Thankfully, this one's done:
Clapotis
Pattern: by Kate Gilbert in Fall 2004 Knitty (as if you didn't know)
Materials: Southwest Trading Company Phoenix (100% soy silk, 175 yards). Exactly 3 skeins. Size 8 Addi Turbo 32" circulars.
Gauge: 5 sts/in
Finished size: 14" x 46"
Started: January 1, 2006
Finished: January 14, 2006
Frogged: January 16, 2006
Finished: February 5, 2006
Notes:
Followed pattern, except repeated increase section a total of 6 times and repeated straight section a total of 12 times. And frogged a lot. Kate Gilbert doesn't tell you to do that.
Discussion:
I actually liked working with Phoenix. After reading the review on Knitter's Review I was a bit skeptical that I'd eventually get the feel of working with a "wet noodle", as some had described. But the reviewer was right, and the very occassional snags were unnoticeable. I highly recommend this stuff if you can find it on sale somewhere. For the first time though, I couldn't meet gauge and get a fabric that I was satisfied with. I ended up meeting gauge for the lighter weight version of this yarn, Oasis. Makes me wonder if I'd turn Oasis into a sport weight yarn...
The pattern is about what I expected it to be. Pretty mindless, but it kept me motivated because I just wanted to get to the next dropped stitch. I just can't figure out how to get the edge stitches on either side of the dropped stitch column to stay tight. Yes, they stay nice and taught when pulled the rows tight, but when you pull the columns tight, the edges of the columns, despite their twistedness, still loosen up. Sigh. I'm living with it, and hopefully the recipient won't notice.
If I ever make this again (doubt it since I already made this one twice) I'd definitely do it in stole size instead of small scarf size. See how it's not as Mr. Yuck short now? I only managed to add 5 inches on to the length, but because of the gauge change, I also took out 4 inches in the width to make it a bit more proportioned.
Previous posts about this project:
Good to be back on 1/11/2006
Too square on 1/14/2006
Beware! on 1/16/2006
