Sweater no more

I'm finally doing as every other knitter has already done: I am making a Clapotis. I swear. Everybody else has already knitted one of these. I am the last one, trailing in, the last one in the race. Just as it was in high school gym class when I was a grungy, bespectacled nerdy girl.

This is because I was despairing about how not good the Patagonia Nature Cotton was looking as I knit it into a tiny sweater for a baby belonging to a friend of mine. I just didn't like it. The thick-n-thin yarn made my knitting look sloppy, not trendily hippieish, as I was hoping it would. So after trying it at several different gauges, I pulled it out.

So then I was looking for a pattern that would work with the thick-n-thin nature of the yarn, and I looked for like the 10th time at the pattern for Clapotis. And I decided that it might look interesting.

So here is the beginnings.

I didn't understand the appeal of Clapotis until I started knitting it. It is a brilliant pattern. The thrilling allure of dropping the stitches keeps me wanting to keep knitting. I've only gotten to drop one ladder so far but it was pretty fun.

Plus, the pattern is written in such a clear way, all the instructions are spelled out so patiently that a total dummy could probably figure it out, and yet it feels intuitively simple... pretty soon I think I'll be able to put the pattern away, and just enjoy the knitting with occasional breaks to drop those stitches, and watch them magically make ladders in my knitting, for the first time ever on purpose.

Incidentally, for those of you who like podcasts, there is a lovely interview with Kate Gilbert, the woman who designed Clapotis, on an early episode of Knitcast. Look here.

And while you're at it, take a look at this amazing and funny post about Clapotis, from Dogs Steal Yarn. I loved the poem before I started knitting the Clapotis. Now I REEEALLY love it.

And for those of you who are wondering, I will still present this yarn (knit into a Clapotis) to my friend with the baby. I was thinking that she might prefer the Clapotis to another piece of baby clothing. She can sure wear it a lot longer than the baby can use the sweater!