late to the party

I know I'm late to the party. I've just started Clapotis:


I'm knitting it with a sock yarn that didn't want to be socks. It's from ebay seller lotus blossom and is a pretty fine fingering weight. Her twinkletoes yarn in the color mid-nite. The yarn swatched up to what seemed like a good clapi gauge (I'm not thinking about gauge according to some count, but based on feel. I'm not sure what the number is, and it doesn't matter to me for a scarf/wrap.) on these size 6us knitpicks options needles. I tried it on size 0us (2 mm) sock needles and it might have worked but was very difficult to stitch. It's a two ply with a fairly loose twist that knits easily on the 6's but was not cooperative on the sock needles.

I've knit a couple of repeats on the straight section and done a couple of drops, though there was just one drop done at the time of this pic. When it was light out, which is good for pictures. I knit on this yarn/clapi for a couple of evenings before I saw what I had in sunlight and was amazed to see the stripiness. But my Sisters Of the Wool said it was just fine so I'm knitting on.

Based on weight of the ball and the weight of 20 yards, I think I have between 500 and 600 yards. I'm using the 20 percent for the increase section guideline and left out one section of increases. I'll do as many repeats of the straight section as I can, saving as much yarn for the decreases as I used for the increases. It should be a generous scarf or skimpy shoulder wrap.

I'm doing a lifeline after each section. I slide all the stitches onto the cable and slide a needle full of crochet cotton (from a collection my mom gave me years ago) through all the stitches. The lifelines made me feel safe at first and though I have the pattern pretty much down now, the lines give me an easy way to count sections. I have found that they get in the way of the dropped stitches, as in the stitches stop dropping when they hit the lifeline, so they won't stay for long. I'm now attaching little coilless pins at the start of each row 1 so I can keep counting.

more later,
j