Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Return of The Clapper


A couple of years ago (but it seems like yesterday), my partner-in-crime and I jumped on the Clapotis bandwagon. Because we felt strange calling it the clap-oh-TEE as we were instructed, we went with the simpler, dirtier "The Clapper".

We chose a nice, soft alpaca from Suss. My P-I-C made hers in solid black, and I made mine in this brown and black tweedy color.


Hers ended up being an appropriate size. Mine is gi-normous.


I'd imagine I'm preaching to the knitting choir here, but this was one of the greatest projects ever. It's enough of a pattern to keep you interested, and not so much of a pattern that you have to pay super close attention once you've figured it out. Right? We, like many of you, long for another The Clapper.


As I write this I'm having a vague recollection of some trouble toward the end, though. Oh, yes. It's kind of coming back to me now. I stopped paying attention just long enough to blow it, and there was some horrible error. No. More like a series of horrible errors. I seem to recall the remedying including: LOTS of tinking (undoing each stitch one at a time), laddering some dropped stitches back up, going to my local yarn store to buy more needles (because I thought that would help somehow), making deflated calls to my P-I-C, and looking in every knitting book I owned and on every Clapotis site for fixes. It was bad. And sad. Each error begat another, and I thought it was all ruined.


Luckily, it all worked out! Looking back, that horrible part seems really inconsequential, and I long to make another! (This is another reason I won't have children. I'm too susceptible to the amnesia. I'd end up with six kids because I'd think childbirth had been totally FINE! I'd become six-kidded Laura on Project Runway. Only I wouldn't have the bazillion dollars or the swank New York apartment like she does. And ALL of my kids, not just one cute one, would love turtle poop.)

Hey, doesn't that last picture of The Clapper look like a pile of loose meats? Too gross? Ok. I take it back.

A Manwich?

No?

Sorry.

Carry on.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I sort of had anmesia about last week's PR, but seriously - How was Laura so unphased by the fact that THE Tim Gunn was in her home, and her rugrats were proffering turtle poop to him?! I guess when you "throw one more on the pile," you just "make it work." Loving your blog, BTW.

Spinner said...

Love your blog - and great post about "the Clapper". I have yet to make this gorgeous pattern. But anything that turns out looking like loose meats is now somehow appealing. Maybe? I can think of someone to give it to at any rate. (hee hee!)

Anonymous said...

Your "clapper" is DIVINE! I made one too (in Lorna's Laces) and yep, it pooled - just like the socks!!! I can't win...