Gifts & Ingenuity …
Oh, how I’ve missed my knitting! Oh, how I love these Secret Pal exchanges!
First up, my Secret Pal sent such a thoughtful and nice package! SP knows that I have problems with wool and went above and beyond trying to find fibers that wouldn’t bother me. These yarns are wonderful to touch and great colors for me. (Ignore the KnitPicks sock yarn in the back … that’s something else.) I’ve got several little ideas floating around for what I’ll do with them … Oh, and the chocolate. My word, the chocolate. This organic Dagoba stuff is just wonderful. You’re only seeing the outer wrapper because I’ve already mauled what was inside it. (I actually just stopped typing to go break off another chunk of it.) I love the little pampering smellish stuff, too, and the tape measure is just the sort of frivolous thing I love but don’t buy for myself. Thank you, SP!
The bottom picture is what we should call “Necessity”. I am bored out of my skull reading all these textbooks and I keep casting longing glances at my yarn basket. So last night I dug through the remaining boxes I have in the living room — the unpacking is going slowly — and found my cookbook holder. Presto change-o, Bob’s your uncle, and I’ve got a textbook reading stand while I knit away at a pattern I’ve got memorized or doesn’t involve pattern-watching. Can I just tell you what a relief that is? I got through almost an entire week’s worth of reading last night because my fingers and enough of my brain were distracted so that I could focus. Never mind that Bismarck will be associated with Clapotis and variegated yarn in my brain forevermore …
Therapy Clapotis is finished!
I keep forgetting to post this here, but I finished the second Clapotis. And here it is, along with my hair in all its needing-to-be-cut, Houston-is-freaking-humid nastiness.
This was made from New Wool that was handpainted by lidika, and of course is the ever famous and popular Clapotis.
I had so much fun knitting this one, and it flew by. It wasn’t without mistakes — I got so caught up reading Harry Potter websites that I purled instead of knit on part of a row, and only figured it out much later.
I will be making another one soon … or three. Seriously, these are wonderful scarves/wraps, and I am going to just keep knitting these for therapy and Christmas gifts.
Couch o’ Knitting
The couch in my Houston apartment has the advantage of rarely seeing a cat around. Since it’s also where I park my rear after work every day, it’s turned into the designated knitting location for my time down here. I can’t tell you how many movies and tv series I’ve watched while sitting there and knitting away.
Since I do most of my knitting here, most of my yarn and needles have migrated here as well. The good thing about the traveling between cities and staying in a hotel was that I focused on one project and kept it with me until it got too big to travel. Now, though … well, look at that couch! I’ve gone from a mostly-finisher to a chronic starter!
You’ve got the blue, green, and purple Therapy Clapotis at the top left; I knit that one almost every night because the pattern is such a soothing repetition. That beautiful black wrap? It’s the long-awaited Cozy, finally getting close to completion. I started on the last ball of yarn this weekend and made the decision to bring the extra-large suitcase this week so I could transport it down here. (Yes, I packed based on my knitting. Lord.)
Top right corner is Samantha, and you can see that I’ve started unraveling the neck shaping so I can rework it … and then I got scared/frustrated/etc. and left it on the back of the couch. (That’s also Clive’s spot to sleep when he’s down here, so I’m glad he’s in Dallas. I would have to actually do something with Samantha if he were here.) I’m also not excited about Samantha because Kailyn is the size of many eight month old babies and she’s only three and a half months old. She’s VERY tall. Well, she started life at almost 9.5 pounds, so what did I expect?
So then we have, on the couch seat, Phillip’s sock, a new baby sweater for yet another baby, and a pile of KnitPicks self-striping sock yarn for — you guessed it — even more baby sweaters. Oh, and some Geranium sock yarn because I love it. There’s also a Rowan magazine hiding under that pile with the pattern for Audrey. The yarn for that is slowly making its way up here, too.
I just need to focus, I know, but I keep wanting to start new and fun things. Btw, I’m still waiting for the sock love to strike. My next ones might have to have a pattern to make me care about them.
I needed a break …
I’ve been therapy-knitting on this the past night or so.
I’m a little frustrated with Samantha. I’m going to pull back and redo the neck shaping (thanks to Tisra’s help) but I just don’t feel like messing with it … again.
I decided to take a break and swatch for the Audrey sweater from Rowan. My yarn (Classic Elite Premiere Cotton) is going to be beautiful, but I’m going to have to adjust my needle size again. I hate that. I don’t know why, since I know that it’s common enough, but I do. I used size 8s and ended up fine with width but too tall in height. That just means I should go down a size, right? I can’t remember. If the Patternworks site would ever work for me, I’d go order a set of Rosewood size 7 circs that I’ve been wanting to try. It won’t, I can’t, and I don’t have another set of 7s here. I just bought some, but I think they fell out of my bag in the car.
So I turned back to another pattern that also happens to be a Kate Gilbert … good old Clapotis!
I’m knitting this one from a pretty handpainted yarn that I got from eBay. I decided to try this yarn because the colors were vibrant and it’s 100% new wool. I forget where or what I read, but it’s supposed to be softer and easier on the skin than regular wool. (Or something like that.) It is, and I’m enjoying working with this, but I’ve got itches all over. It’s not as bad as with some yarns, though, so I’m happy about that. Now I just need a few more West Wing discs to watch, some Tylenol, and some Benadryl, and I should have this done in no time!
ARGH!!!
I am frustrated with myself right now and angry to the point of ranting profane words all over the place.
I don’t tolerate wool well. It tears my skin up, it makes me itch, my eyes water, my nose close, etc. I don’t use anything that’s pure wool, I don’t read felting patterns, I don’t know anything about the ins and outs of taking care of wool. I don’t even buy wool sweaters. My wool pants or coats have to be fully lined and with no wool actually touching my skin.
So, when I got ketchup on my Clapotis last night, I didn’t think about proper ways to clean wool. I thought about proper ways to clean a delicate garment that was 50% silk. “Oh,” I thought, “Gentle cycle, cold water, vinegar rinse.”
And I f#$%ing felted my Clapotis. I’ve spent the last half hour trying to at least save the ladders from sticking to each other, because really — what else could it do to it? Ruin it? Not bloody likely, that’s already taken care of.
Clive may have his $100 cat bed after all.
Final Clapotis pictures.
But what about the Cliveotis?
Once, there was a wee grey kitty named Clive. Clive loved to lounge about upon his girl’s knitting. He could bat at it, help her straighten the yarn, and make sure the points of her bamboo needles were nice and rough.
His favorite project, though, was the Clapotis. He knew it by its true name, the Cliveotis. It was a secret the two of them shared as they snuggled up together while the girl fussed about with its ends.
All was well with the cat and his Cliveotis … until it suddenly disappeared one evening. Clive looked and looked. Where could it be? Why … is that the Cliveotis, hiding behind the door?
It is, it is! Clive was so relieved to find his Cliveotis again. “What happened?! Where did you go?!” he frantically meowed.
“Don’t worry, little grey cat,” responded Cliveotis. “I am merely resting after a small bath. I will be good as new tomorrow, but I have to tell you … I think your girl would like to borrow me for a while.”
“Well,” said Clive, “I suppose that will be all right. I know that she’ll leave you out on the chair or a couch sometimes, and we can have a cozy little nap together sometimes. I’ll leave you to your drying, my friend. I seem to remember something else ‘Cozy‘ that is around here, and I better go check on it.”
And the Cliveotis smiled to itself, and settled in for a restful night of drying. She knew that Clive would be back, and that he would tell her all about the other friends he made.
C’est … um … completo!
(My apologies … I was a Spanish major, not French! I actually dropped out of French class after two weeks because I kept answering everything in Spanish and my French had a Spanish accent. Turned out, a few years later, that even my Russian has a Spanish accent, so … anyway … right. Knitting!)
I finished Clapotis tonight but Clive won’t get off of it so I can finish weaving in the ends. I love and adore this pattern, and I love the yarn enough to suffer through the itchy eyes and slight sniffles I get when I wear it. The pattern is simple genius, it really is. Basic stitches with careful planning and a bit of whimsy, that’s what Clapotis is.
I had four (minor) issues/mistakes with Clapotis:
- I ran out of yarn. I’d bought the three recommended skeins and then had to order another one, and didn’t get the same dye lot. Eh. The fourth skein is less vibrant than the others, but really — who cares? Not me.
- I forgot one yarn over in my set-up stitches. This made a bloody mess out of the end of one of the ladder runs, but I think it’ll be easily fixed with weaving. I’ll let you know when Clive gets up.
- I forgot to drop a stitch in one of my ladder runs, so I’m short a ladder run. I don’t know how I managed to do it, but I did. Again: eh.
- One of my sections is a stitch short. Again with the “eh!” because (a) it sounds so French and (b) it’s still beautiful, so who cares?!
On to Cozy while the cat snoozes beside me on the $100 cat bed known as “Clapotis” …
Pre-emptive Knitting?
I have a sudden urge to lay aside Cozy and pick up Clapotis. This urge has quite a bit to do with the cold front that will sweep through Houston tonight, and the fact that I left all of my coats in Dallas. I’m feeling the need for some warmth.
I never did post an updated picture of Clapotis after the drive out to Atlanta, so here you go:
You can click on that picture for a bigger version, but it’s all fuzzy because I clearly didn’t have enough caffeine this morning. Compare that picture with the picture pre-Atlanta trip, stretched over the same couch:
That, my friends, is what 13 hours of driving and about 10 hours of knitting get you.
Monotonous yet pretty
Okay, the thing about knitting any sort of really large object is that it just turns out to be boring halfway through. You still love it, the pattern is still great, and the yarn is wonderful, but it’s just plain boring to keep going on something for that long.
Witness: Clapotis.
I do love the yarn and the color, but my lord am I bored. It’s a good thing I’ve had so much television to watch because this thing goes on and on. I’m only halfway through the third of the five sections!
Awww. The Cliveotis. Isn’t that just cute?
