Finished my Clapotis

I didn't like how my clapotis was turning out but it wasn't too bad to start over so I opted to sew it together at the ends and make it into a cowl. I'm glad I did, I'm very pleased with it.

I took photos with my real camera so you can actually see how nice the colors are in this yarn.

I  only did 2 repeats of the increase and worked it to be 24 inches long bound off and sewed it together at the ends. I would reccomend stopping short of your desired length and doing the decreases. Mine has a weird angle where I sewed it together.

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Old FO's & a small status update on my Clapotis

So it has been a while since I have been able to knit more than a few rows at a time. So between getting no real progress and nothing terrible happening I haven't had much to say about my ever growing clapotis. She's slowly getting bigger and I'm slowly starting to hate the dropped stitches less. So I think all is well. I hope to get a lot of work done on Thursday as it is my day off and it's supposed to rain so I won't want to do anything.

So on to a small group of my recent FO's! These are all the things I have recently finished that I have photos of on my phone. None of which I knit from a pattern.

These were the mitten like things that inspired me to try and jot down a pattern. The one I am trying to write a pattern for uses a different style cable and is a little smaller but is basically the same. The only thing I don't like about these fingerless mittens is that theyre currently just a little big for me and since theyre knit on alpalca I'm sure they will only grow. So they will most likley me my boys. I knit this with wonderfully soft Alpalca and we have a matching hat somewhere at home.

Though not exactly finished in this photo (I hadn't finished the 2nd handle) this is now finished and although a little on the small side I do bring it to the grocery store with me when picking up a few items. This was knit with some free yarn I found on Craigslist. I believe one (dark) was a wool acrylic mix and the other was straight acrylic (lighter color). The bottom of the bag was knit with both strands held together in seed stitch to make it stronger and more likely to hold its shape when empty. After knitting the base I picked up the sticthes all around it and knit in the round. It was a very relaxing knit which mostly happened in my off moments at work.

This bag was knit in the round with a mix of patons anna and manos. It proves to be rather useless when attempting to carry items. So I am going to end up giving it to my baby sister for her birthday. It will be fine for toting toys around the house. Not so much for things like wallets and keys and other random crap that I would want to have with me. I do think its kind of cute though. Maybe I will try and improve the design in the future.

I like how this purse came out with the exception of the stripe in the middle. In hindsight I would have made the pink middle stripe as a knit stitch instead of a purl so it wouldn't look as awkward. It didn't bother me enough to frog it though. I do really like the pattern I made with the purl in the MC; you can sort of see it here it looks like "<". This was also, knit in the roud (oh how I love my circluar needles) at work with a crochet border around the top and a crochet handle. I added a little button and flap so it can stay partially closed. I do want to eventually add a liner to it so it doesn't stretch out too much.

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Clapotis Day 3 (WIP)

I don't really like how my dropped stitches are coming out. I don't know if the reason the look wonky is because I have been holding 2 strands of yarn together or if its because I'm doing something wrong or if it's simply because I have not blocked it yet as its not done.

You can probably see how wide the gap is at the bottom of the piece when I have dropped a stitch. The top looks great but the bottom just looks sloppy. Maybe I am dropping the wrong stitch? Maybe my stitches that I knit in the back aren't twisted right?  I don't really have the answers just yet.  I still have a lot to go, and I am not going to frog it unless I really mess up big time, so I will live with the gaps. 

I'm not too worried about it since I opted to make it a narrow scarf rather than the wider stole like scarf that the pattern is for.  It's now time to go to work, maybe I will knit some more tonight. It really is an addictive pattern to knit. I like it almost as much as enterlac.

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Clapotis day 2 (wip)

DISASTER STRIKES:

Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad however just as I was really getting into the rhythm; not having to peek at the pattern at all; I run into quite the speedbump. A huge knot in my purple skein. If it wasn't bad enough that I had this big stupid knot, after I cut the yarn, worked it out and pulled a little more yarn 

out to get back to knitting another huge knot cam

e on out for me to work out.  If this happens with the gray skein too I will not be loving my Clapotis nearly as much as I would have thought.

Progress was Made:

I was not too discouraged to keep going though. I ended up doing 2 more rounds on Part 2. I don't like wide scarves (especially since we will be moving to florida this winter) so I

 may move on to Pt 3 next or after just one more set.

So far I like knitting this one, I think even after I finish this first one I could even manage to knit a second at work. Its not too hard, so I think the daily distractions could be worked through. Most importantly though, its not just a rectangle! I've been trying to push myself to get past just doing basic scarves and bags. I enjoy the triangle so far, and hope that the parallelogram section won't be too difficult.

More Progress!

After coming home for the night I decided to work on this a little more. I headed on to Part 3 and finished one round of that. The dropped stitches seem a little more unruly than in the exacmple. I ran into a few more knots and have decided to spend the rest of my night winding it around a needle I dont plan on using for a while. Maybe that will keep the knots from coming back.

On an unreleated note I wish I could adjust colors of photographs on my Mac. The yarn I am using is much nicer looking. I will break out the real color in daylight for photos of the FO.

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Clapotis day one (WIP)

I started knitting Clapotis from Knitty tonight. I'm using Jagger Spun Zephyr in Plum and Pewter holding two strands together on size 6 Circular needles.

I got through part 1 and one time through part 2. It seems to be pretty easy and rhythmic so far! I have opted to purl as well as use stitch markers (safety pins) to mark the stitches that I will drop later.

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