Recently in Clapotis Category

Thanks everyone for your comments on Clapotis. Mia, it was after his mess-up, so he was being very nice! Colleen, this will be a spring/summer scarf/wrap; I live near the beach and it gets a tad chilly during the summer evenings. Sandy J, it lost its curl when I blocked it, so think ahead when you make one (curl, don't block; no curl, no block). Better yet, make two! And there goes my plug for Clapotis!

Did you hear about the guy who bought a fish from a Chinese restaurant and let it go? He has pictures too! Read it--and see it--here.

Care for some neutered dog haiku?

Reading: Okay, I felt like I copped out when I made Strange/Norrell my read last week. So I read John Sandford's Mortal Prey. He has a series of Prey books, that BF likes to call my serial killer books. I do like to read different things, every once in a while. I'm currently reading Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, would like the book's perspective before I go rent the video.

Pattern: Clapotis (from Knitty Fall 2004) by Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Handpainted Twinkletoes sock yarn from eBay store Over The Rainbow Yarns, 585 yards (I could be wrong). I believe the pink/blue/teal/purple colorway is called Crocus.
Needles: US 8
Finished Size: 26.5" wide x 68" long, with blocking.

I love it! Can you tell by my goofy grin?

Of course, I made some modifications. I used sock yarn instead of worsted. With less yardage, I knit one less increase at the beginning (and therefore one less decrease at the end) and one less straight repeat. Everything was going swimmingly until the I knit the decreases, where I predictably ran out of yarn halfway. Rrrriiippp! I had knit 12 straight repeats so I frogged back to the end of the 11th. Good thing I had a lifeline there, and that I didn't drop any stitches yet. I knit the decreases again. And again... rrriiipp! So I ended up doing decreases on both sides for 1 whole repeat toward the very end, and then did the finishing decrease the specified way. That end looks pointy, then angles in sharply, then pointy again. I dropped all the stitches, soaked and blocked it, and proceeded to dance around the apartment wearing Clapotis. BF was impressed (though not with my dancing).

I highly recommend this pattern to anyone looking for a quick knitted gift. The bias cut is a great idea. It looks great unblocked--the bias shows more--but I blocked this to make a wrap.

Reading: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I've read all of 50 pages; it's starting to get interesting (but oh so slowly). And, since The Big Project at work has been completed I've been catching up on my newsreader feeds and listening to KnitCasts.

As predicted, John Grisham's The Broker was boring. His writing is definitely not what it used to be. If you've ever read his first two books, you'll know what I'm talking about. There isn't enough... substance. My sibs and I share a lot of books (my older sister's job requires weekly travel, so she buys a lot of popular fiction paperbacks in airports, reads them, and then passes them down), and we all agree that he's not writing like he used to. Michael Crichton, on the other hand, has kept up the level of writing in his books, regardless of topic (think Congo). Anyway, that's my two cents on popular fiction writers.

Battle Royale was a good, bloody-guts-and-violence book. It sparked controversy in Japan because of the violence and the fact that (spoiler!) children were killing each other, but thankfully it's fiction. I could rehash some of the discussion on that topic, or you could read the book and at least appreciate the writing. Go to Amazon.com for more reviews. And for anyone else who's interested, there's a 16-volume manga version. Wendy, let me know what you think of it.

Not much. Workwise, we're in the middle of an impossible deadline (boo). Traffic has been hellish due to the rain (ick). I lead-climbed a 5.11d this weekend (yay). I knitted and spun a bit (yay). So the good and the bad balance out.

We have the ubiquitous Clapotis in progress. It's inevitable that a pattern will form in variegated yarn, and it did here, but since stitches will be dropped, the pattern won't be so obvious. I don't think there's an efficient way to dye yarn so that the color lengths are totally random, other than doing it one length at a time. I really like the yarn that Mia sent because the color lengths are shorter, thereby avoiding excessive color pooling.

I'd been looking for patterns to use up the rest of my Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora and I found Marnie's site and patterns through a post of JenLa's. She has some good patterns (especially the hats) with very clear directions. I am learning the hard lesson with metal double-pointed needles (aaaaargh), and after I finish this hat I'm going to buy some bamboo ones.

Reading: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, a book that's been compared to The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Takami's book takes it 2 steps further. This is Amazon.com's product description: "Battle Royale, a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence, is one of Japan's best-selling--and most controversial-- novels. As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one "winner" remains.... A Japanese pulp classic available in English for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world."