Clapotis - The Final Installment

Well it is finally finished. I actually finished on Thursday night. I wore it to work on Friday and four different ladies were wearing colors that really went well with it. A couple offered to take it off my hands. One lady asked if I knit it over night - don't I wish I was that fast.

After wearing it, I decided not to block it. I like the wavy texture the dropped stitches create and I don't want that to go away. Although no blocking made it a pain to take measurements and pictures. I didn't really get a nice picture of it all stretched out in it's full length glory.

I did like working with the Lady Godiva. It was very soft and silky on my hands. I hope to get some more Hand Maiden yarns to try. I haven't seen any at the local shops so I ordered these skeins online - site unseen. I do admit that I do that with quite a bit though. The dropped stitches did have to be coaxed into release all the way down. I saved dropping all the stitches to the end and it ended up taking up most of my normal evening knitting time. I had been kind envisioning the stitches magically dropping all on their own but the yarn was a little grabby for that.

I've also decided that I am a slow knitter and I'll just have to account for that when doing projects. I originally thought that this would be much faster to knit. The straight section repeats took me about an hour each. The increase and decrease sections just seemed to fly right by though.

I knit straight from each of the skeins and did not alternate. There is a slight color difference in each of the three sections. But I think that is because each skein had a slightly different percentage of each color. All the colors appear to be from the same dye batch though. Each end of the Clapotis does have some pooling, but not much. I like the pooling because it shows the hand dyed yarn off to me. I like seeing the little patches of color.

Project Info
Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Hand Maiden Lady Godiva; color - paris
3 skeins (4 grams leftover)
Needles: addi TURBO -US# 7 (4.5mm)
Gauge: 5 stitches/7 rows per inch
Pattern Modifications:
Added one repeat to Section 2 (increase rows)
Added four repeats to Section 3 (straight rows)
Added one repeat to Section 4 (decrease rows)
Date Started: February 14, 2007
Date Finished: March 8, 2007

All measurements provided here are approximate and non binding. Numbers are presented in good faith and I did make a good attempt at pinning the Clapotis flat to get the correct numbers.

I almost didn't knit this. I'm not sure why; maybe because I hadn't yet found the right yarn. But I'm really glad I did. I'm pleased with the yarn in both color and feel. I also think it is something I will actually use. It's kind of funny, but I'm always still a little surprised when I finish a project and I'm satisfied with the results. As a little reward I placed an order for a set of the new addi lace needles. Was that wrong? I haven't done any lace knitting yet. I got them in US size 1 with sock knitting in mind. There have been several times I wished for sharper points when knitting socks. I'm looking forward to trying them.