This scarf alternates one garter-stitch ridge of black Cascade 220 with one ridge of red-black-white yarn from Fancy Image Yarn. The stitches are slipped as per the Baby Genius Burp Cloth pattern in “Mason-Dixon Knitting.”

I like this scarf a lot, but it turned into a short tuck-in jobbie. After four feet I bound off because I could not knit any more garter stitch. I had been nibbling away on this scarf for about three months, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I realized that the fastest way to take it off the UFO list was… to bind off and call it done.

After all, the garter stitch will stretch, won’t it? Sure it will. Okay, it won’t, but who cares? It’s done. DONE I TELL YOU.

I really like what the garter stitch does to the colors. I like the colors themselves - red, black, and white is old school punk, baby.

Nevertheless, I have yet to work up the initiative to weave in the ends so that I can wear it. It sits where I left it after taking the above pictures. I pass it every morning, as I wind Danica around my neck on my way out the door.

And so I christen thee: Next Year’s Scarf.

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Ah, the mighty Clapotis! This must be one of the most popular designs in blogland. Google returns 230,000 results for the search term “clapotis,” and Ravelry lists it as the #2 pattern with 250 WIPs, 2,716 projects, and 344 blog posts. (In case you were wondering, the #1 pattern is Monkey, with 259 WIPs).

(How the heck do you pronounce “clapotis”? I pronounce it French-like, “klap-o-tee.” A friend of mine insists on pronouncing it “klap-otis,” but she might be doing this just to vex me. I am sadly vulnerable to such tactics.)

But ask yourself… how many Clapotises have you seen in the wild? I have seen precisely one, and it was at a fiber festival, so that doesn’t really count. Based on the number of people working on a Clapotis, we should be ankle-deep in the things. What’s happening?

A brief (and entirely unscientific) study of the factors involved in the high Clapotis failure rate revealed the following:

1. Poor yarn substitution: Fiber content

The pattern calls for four (four!) skeins of Lorna’s Laces Lion and Lamb, which retails for around $32 per skein. We all love our knitting, but do we love our knitting enough to drop $120 on the yarn for a scarf? Most of us do not, so we throw ourselves on the mercy of our stash, and pick something a little more affordable.

Lion and Lamb is a worsted weight, wool/silk blend with a smooth, almost slick feel. When subbing a yarn for Clapotis, I strongly suggest you knit a swatch several inches high, then drop a stitch. How hard is it to get that stitch all the way down to the cast-on row? Do you have to pluck at it with a crochet needle while tugging your swatch back and forth?

Magnify this stitch-dropping experience by about 12,000%. This is what it will be like to knit Clapotis with that particular yarn.

2. Poor yarn substitution: Weight

Lion and Lamb is a worsted-weight yarn, and you still need 820 yards of the stuff. According to these numbers I totally pulled out of Google’s butt [pdf] and some sloppy Erika Math, you would need to substitute 987 yards of sport, or 1,110 yards of fingering weight yarn.

Let’s take a step back and look at those numbers. That’s a lot of knitting. If you substitute a yarn smaller than worsted weight, it will involve more knitting still - 99.5% of which will be plain old stockinette. Are you up for that? You sure? Many have tried, and many have failed.

Trust me, closets across the world are littered, choked with the remains of partially-completed Clapotises in fingering and sport weight yarns.

3. This thing is really, really big

The pictures in the original pattern don’t really give a feeling for the size of a completed Clapotis. Even the finished measurements (21 inches by 55 inches) fail to convey the sheer gigantism of the thing. Have you seen the picture Franklin took of Knit and Tonic’s Clapotis on the beach? Well, I can’t find it right now, but here’s her official FO picture. Look at it! It’s huge!

The size has two consequences:

* It’s a lot more knitting than you might expect.

* Choose your colors wisely!

That kicky red-and-orange variegated yarn may look awesome in the skein, but ask yourself, how will it look at blanket size?

You may try to avoid the size by knitting it smaller, with fewer set-up rows. That’s what I did, and it looked great at first!

Unfortunately, Clapotis is designed to curl. That’s part of why it’s so huge - it curls up into a tube and still looks great. However, if you knit it in sport-weight yarn (as I did), it will curl up into a tube about the size of a pencil. And then you will wrap it around your neck and you will feel sad.

Summary

Clapotis is beautiful and easy to knit, and the pattern is very well-written, but it does have several potential pitfalls. Approach with caution.

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The tea cozy, she is finished!

The trick to looking like a rockstar supafast knitter? Pick small projects and fat yarn!

Pattern: Fiber Trends Braided Cable Tea Cosies (213)

Yarn: Patons Classic Wool Merino, color “Bright Red” (and isn’t it just?)

Mods: This is a 32-ounce teapot, and I was working at the recommended gauge. My first attempt in this yarn was far too large, so I ripped back and cast on only 49 stitches. The pattern provides instructions for three sizes (2, 4, and 6 cups). Unfortunately, since the pattern doesn’t define the number of ounces in a “cup,” this metric is meaningless. Since I used about half the number of stitches required for the smallest size, apparently one cup = 32 ounces.

Perhaps I misunderstand the amount of ease that a teapot prefers. Like maybe I don’t realize it, but the teapot is all, “This is too form-fitting! It makes me look fat!” It’s hard to say, since the pattern doesn’t provide finished measurements.

I also cabled more frequently, with only 3 rows of plain knitting in between cable crossings. I didn’t like the look of the cables in the pattern; just a matter of personal preference.

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