WIP Wednesday (Clapotis!) and FOs, too!

Yep, I'm finally making a Clapotis. I've only wanted to make one of these puppies since...well, since I first started knitting. ;-) It sat in my Ravelry queue forever. I was scared by its seemingly complicated instructions and unsure of what yarn to use.

I eventually decided to use my Wool in the Woods Cameo, which I've had in the stash for even longer than I've wanted to make the Clapotis! It's a DK-weight rayon yarn. I'd originally purchased it with a plan of crocheting a sweater with it (in hindsight, a sweater made with this yarn would've been more of a blouse, but whatever), so I have a large quantity. This means I won't have to worry about running out of yarn for the Clapotis, which uses quite a bit of yarn. The original Clapotis pattern calls for worsted weight yarn and size 8 needles, and I'm using 7s since that's what's recommended for the yarn, so mine will be a bit smaller but I don't mind that at all.

Here she is:

The colorway is called Jackpot. It's a little more purple and a little less dark than this picture suggests. The dropped stitches, which make the Clapotis so open and airy, will be incorporated later. (See where those holes are (from yarnovers)? That's where the dropped stitches will eventually go down to. Neat, eh?)

I started working on this with some trepidation - after all, the instructions were long and I didn't know how to knit or purl through the back loop. I found spreadsheets to help me with the pattern but they were long too and quite intimidating. I finally settled on the spreadsheet with the most color, since we have a color printer and I like color-coded things.

And you know what? Much like other things I've knitted, it's not nearly as complicated as I'd thought it would be. Lots of repetition, which is OK by me since I don't like to have to look at a pattern every 5 seconds. I learned how to knit and purl through the back loops from one of the books I have, and it's not hard.

By the way, you could knit this on straight needles, and a lot of people probably do. I just don't like straight needles much (in fact, I despise the longer ones) so I am using my trusty circulars.

Also, lots of people advise to purl the stitches to be dropped instead of using stitch markers. However, when I started the pattern, I didn't have a clue which stitches would be dropped or how that would work. Now I know, but I've already started with the stitch markers and I love using my handmade ones. The butterflies and flowers look so sweet with the colors of the yarn! You have to use a total of 18 stitch markers for this, but of course I have plenty. :-)

Now on to those FOs! Unfortunately, I can only go into detail about one right now, because the other one is a secret. (Shhh!) The one I can discuss here is, of course, the Croeso! Drumroll please...

On the blocking board! This thing was really hard to pin out. I wet blocked it with some Soak wash and then used literally all of my T-pins on it.

 Hangin' out on the couch.

 Outside, by our favorite tree.

 

 Front view.

Back view with my hair out of the way so you can see the branching cables.

I am so pleased with this. I especially love how the green yarn looks on the last few rows - what a gorgeous border that turned out to be! I am almost glad I ran out of yarn! Many thanks to a dear friend (you know who you are! Love you!) for the green yarn.

I am thinking about adding a small button to the front of this because it doesn't have a long enough wingspan to use a shawl pin without my wrapping the shawlette around my neck, and I can't do that because of my wool allergy. Also, I don't want it to be wrinkled up at all - I want to show off the whole darn thing when I wear it!

Measurements turned out to be: 41" wingspan and 21" from top to bottom at lowest point. The one gripe I have about this pattern is that no finished measurements or gauge were given, so I had no idea how big it would turn out to be. The finished size of mine is a little unwieldy. It is so beautiful, though! I'm really proud of it, in case you couldn't tell!

I will post about my other FO once I am sure it has been received. Rest assured that lots of pictures were taken.

WIP Wednesday: Croeso progress, Dew Drop Cowl, and a non-knitting FO

Hi all! Happy WIP Wednesday! Here is my latest Croeso progress update picture:

Oh I love this shawlette so much. You might notice, though, that in the top left corner is a little ball of yarn...that's all I have left of this colorway. I'm trying desperately on Ravelry to get a small amount of coordinating yarn to finish with since I am pretty sure that little ball doesn't contain enough yardage.

I know it's a stretch, but does anyone reading this have a small amount of any sport weight wool that might go well with this, that I could buy from you? I can't get another full skein of JDMS Mohonk anytime soon - it's very pricey. It's well worth it, but I just can't do it right now.

Edited to add: Yarn problem solved! Hooray!!!

Also, while I'm asking questions, here's one for anyone who has knit a clapotis: any idea why those who have made it on Ravelry have used such drastically different yardage? I've checked out several projects using just 1 specific yarn, and people have used anywhere between 4 and 10 skeins. I'm having trouble figuring out how much yarn I actually need for the pattern, since the pattern itself says I'll need more than I have but the projects would have me believe otherwise.

On another note, I've realized that the smaller size needles I use, the more my hands hurt when I knit. Right now I am also working on a Dew Drop Cowl - here I am posing with it at the latest Stitch & Bitch:

I'm using size 10 needles for the cowl. My Croeso shawlette is knit on size 4 needles. The difference is crazy - I don't need my wrist braces while working on the cowl and I have almost no hand and wrist pain. When working on the shawlette, I need the braces and I need to pace myself much more and stretch a lot.

Anyway, I'm not in a hurry to finish the cowl because it's a great project to bring to Stitch & Bitch! It's just stockinette except for a few eyelet rows. Great mindless knitting. I still managed to mess up the first eyelet row while working on it at S&B, so I have to make sure to do the eyelets at home! LOL! Most knitting is not truly mindless enough for me to work on it while talking, but straight stockinette or garter I can do.

And here, as promised, is an FO:

I made the little mookaite heart earrings on the left to go with the "Angel Pig" on the right. These were gifts for my second-oldest niece's birthday, which just passed (ohmygosh she's 10 - where does the time go?!). I hope she likes them. We weren't able to give the gifts in person because my sister and her family are camping, so we had to mail them. My hubby picked out the piggy and helped me choose the heart beads. The earrings are sterling silver (posts, headpins and little round beads - all sterling). I like to use the good stuff. ;-)

Not sure if my niece ever wears dangly earrings. These are very short dangles, so maybe she will wear them. She is very athletic, so I didn't think big dangles would be such a great idea! I made sure to use post earring findings so they'd be less likely to fall out of her ears.

I am almost finished with a secret crochet gift project. More on that in 2 or 3 weeks when it's been finished and received...

WIP Wednesday - more Croeso, a knitting pain update, and Clapotis thoughts

Hi! I don't have any pretty pictures for you today, but I hope you'll bear with me anyway.

My wrists and thumbs are doing a little better lately. I took 2 days off from knitting, and I got wrist braces (nothing fancy, just OTC stuff) from the drugstore and a wrist rest for my mousepad. All these things together seem to be helping. I've also been trying for better posture while knitting.

I can still really only do 2 rows on the Croeso at a time, but they're pretty long rows at this point so I do feel like I've made progress even after just doing that much. I've finished section 4 and started section 5. This is the last section! In the next row, I'll be starting a few more cables.

I've been obsessing a little about a certain section of cable that I accidentally twisted. It looks weird and is somewhat noticeable, but it's way back toward the beginning and there's no way I'm going back to fix it now, so I've just got to learn to live with it. Whoops. Checking my cables a lot more carefully now.

I've been thinking a lot today about knitting a Clapotis. I have 2 different yarns I could use - one is Berroco Cotton Twist (worsted cotton blend) in a brown/white/teal multi and the other is Wool in the Woods Cameo (100% rayon DK) in a green/blue/pink/purple multi. Leaning toward the latter only because I have more of it. I've only got 595 yards of the Cotton Twist. Of the others on Ravelry who have made it with the Cotton Twist, some have used more than this and some have used less. I can't figure out why the amount of yarn used varies so widely. (If you know, please leave a comment!) :-)

A little more Croeso

Here's my WIP Wednesday post, a day late. Oops. I'm into the lace section on the Croeso.

Many people on Ravelry say this shawlette is a quick, easy knit. I will not say that.

Up until the lace part, I was doing OK (well, except that some of my cables came out a little weird and I don't know why, but...whatever). But all these SSKs and yarnovers are killing me, as is getting the right number of stitches. I've had to pick up yarnovers from the row below sometimes because I left them out. I've been making mistakes and having to fix them. Luckily, I usually realize it before too long.

I love this shawlette and I want to finish it now now now, but I have been having a lot of hand and wrist pain from knitting lately. This pattern requires intense concentration and as a result I've been tensing up, which has led me to hurt myself. Now that I'm aware of it, it shouldn't be as much of a problem. I just can't do a lot at a time. Ordinarily, I can only knit for an hour or 2 tops, due to other physical problems. Now I can only knit about a row of this at a time (which takes maybe half an hour if I'm good and slow about it), and then the next row (a purl row - all the even numbered rows are purl rows) after taking a break.

I already do lots of hands and wrist stretches, and am thinking about getting some support gloves to wear while knitting. My hands have been freezing lately, so ice is out of the question because I just wouldn't be able to take it for very long - but I tried wrapping a heating pad around my right wrist the other night for a while and that seemed to help.

I probably also need to get a wrist rest for my mouse pad. Maybe my keyboard too, but I feel like my wrist especially hurts when I use the mouse.

I've taken a brief look at page 6 of this pattern and I'm trying not to let it freak me out too much! The bind off seems really complicated! It comes out looking very pretty, though. You can see it fairly well in this picture of the original by the pattern's author, Camille Coizy:

Wish me luck! ;-) I'll keep posting about this here...

What's cookin'

I know this isn't really a cooking blog, and I generally don't consider myself much of a cook. However, recently I've baked up a few things I'm proud of, so I thought I'd share.

First up: lasagna. I've made this twice since my husband's back surgery 6 weeks ago, and it feeds us well (and it's so yummy!).

This is made from this recipe from the De Boles website. It's gluten free, since I can't eat wheat (I just have a sensitivity to wheat in particular, not a gluten allergy - wheat does very bad things to my stomach but I can handle lower-gluten grains such as spelt). I love this recipe and have been using it for a long time but hadn't made it for a while. We use our own "Nomato" sauce (sub for tomato sauce - mostly carrots and beets and some spices, good stuff). Again, this is because of my picky stomach, which doesn't do so well with tomato sauce.

Bonus: since I'm on Weight Watchers right now, I appreciate this healthy recipe even more - it's 8 Points Plus per serving, and a serving is enough for dinner in and of itself, no extras needed unless you want to make some more veggies or something. Not bad Points-wise!

Next, I'd like to share the blueberry muffins I made today. I used King Arthur gluten-free muffin mix. Here they are:

Oh my goodness these came out well. Not hard to make at all, either. In case any WW-type people are interested, 5 Points Plus per muffin. I used fresh blueberries courtesy of a certain grocery store that recently had a sale of 6 1-pint boxes for $6.99. Could not pass that up! I made blueberry pancakes yesterday, too!

And finally, some knitting! Here's my latest Croeso pic:

This pattern is great. I am loving the cables. I'm actually a bit farther along than this pic shows; the middle now has 3 cables and I've just started the lace sections in between them. This yarn is creating a stripey effect which I absolutely love.

And that's it for now! Hope you've all had a great weekend!

WIP Wednesday: Winterfell Croeso

Hello! It's that time of the week again, and I have a WIP to show off. I am working on a Croeso, Lace & Cable Shawlette (pattern by Camille Coizy) in Jill Draper Makes Stuff Mohonk yarn in the Winterfell colorway. I had originally started making a cowl with this yarn, but I was thinking about the shawlette the other day and how I really wanted to make it and didn't have the right yarn - and all of a sudden, I realized I did have the right yarn! ;-) So the cowl was frogged and a shawlette was born.

I am done with "Part 1" of the shawlette and have inserted my 2nd lifeline (the lifelines are the bits of pink yarn, which will come out when I'm done but in the meantime will prevent me from having to rip the whole thing out if I make a mistake, in theory anyway...). Totally excited about this project. It is by far the most complicated thing I've ever tried to make. Thin yarn (sport weight) on a size 4 (3.5mm) needle with cables and lace, and it started out with a garter tab cast-on, which was totally new to me.

Here's a close-up of the cables so far:

Next section involves me learning how to M1 (I've done it before but not enough that I remember how without looking at a book for instruction). Yay?

Still loving my coffee bean stitch markers, as you can see.

I'm also still working away on a secret crochet project, and I've started making a Dew Drop Cowl with some fuchsia Queensland Sugar Rush yarn I've had around for a while. It's for the monthly KAL (Knit-Along) with the "Cowls" group on Ravelry. Fun.

I finished my Woods and Water cowl, which came out great. Here's a pic of that one:

I've already worn it once. It is so amazingly soft. I am in love with Malabrigo Rios yarn now. It is beautiful and cuddly and working with it was a joy. I hope I'll get some more soon.

WIP Wednesday - Woods and Water

How's that for alliteration? Heehee, couldn't resist. I am currently working on a Woods and Water Cowl (that's a Rav link) in Malabrigo Rios in the Indiecita colorway. I am in love with this superwash wool yarn - it is so soft and squishy and the colors are amazing. Unfortunately, it is a little splitty (as I've found out with the k2togs in this pattern - and there are a lot of them), but the end result will definitely be worth it!

I have also started a Dew Drop Cowl in Jill Draper Makes Stuff Mohonk yarn in the Winterfell colorway. The yarn is a beautiful mix of muted grays, greens and blues. No pic because I've only done about 3 rows and it doesn't look like much!

My Stitch & Bitch has been making squares for Knit-A-Square. I've only made 2 so far (and am in the middle of a third), but I feel good knowing they will be parts of warm baby blankets. I highly recommend this charity - all you have to do is make a square! How easy can you get?! One woman in the group crocheted 29 squares by the time it took me to make 2. LOL. Not that I'm comparing. I've been really busy both with other projects and with other life stuff, and they say knitting takes longer than crochet (though I'm convinced it doesn't in my case, I just don't get as bored with garter stitch as I do with simple crochet stitches that don't make pretty shells or the like).

I'm also working on a secret crochet project...can't give any further details now but I will post about it once it has been given to the recipient. 

As for the projects I posted about last time I posted in this blog, the Curvy Knits Flare Top is in time-out for now because I got really frustrated with it, and the Liwen Jacket is hibernating at the moment but I hope I will feel motivated to take it out again soon.

A local yarn store is closing (boooo!), but I did get there and though I still couldn't afford the yarn with 25% off, I was able to get a row counter and some jumbo stitch markers I really needed. I am so happy to finally have a row counter.

Oh, more big yarn-y news: I have a swift!

Here's my setup with the yarn ball winder and tabletop swift. The swift is unfinished wood and was the cheapest I could get, and I am very happy with it. My only problem is that the dowels are difficult for me to get into and out of the holes (you can adjust them for different size yarn hanks), but for the price I paid, that's not such a big deal. The lovely creation on the ball winder is the aforementioned Jill Draper Mohonk yarn.

In other news entirely, my husband just had back surgery and seems to be recovering well! Hooray!