Aah, the Clapotis. The scarf/shawl that swept the nation, right? It debuted in the Fall 2004 issue of Knitty, and its popularity soared into the stratosphere and never came back down. It only boasts a mere twenty thousand projects on Ravelry, and that number doesn't even include all the people in the world that have made one and NOT bothered to add it to Ravelry.
I, myself, have contributed four Clapotis (what's the plural of Clapotis? My French isn't that good) out of the twenty-plus thousand walking the Earth. My first was way behind the times; after all I knit it in 2009, a full five years after the pattern was first published. The second was a gift for my friend Nichole, and I made it in my friend Paula's handspun yarn. The third was more recent, and it is this Clapotis that reignited the flame.
Last Fall we brought in Dream in Color Starry, a fingering weight hand-dyed yarn with a subtly sparkle. I looked and looked for the perfect one-skein project to show off this yarn and couldn't find anything to my satisfaction. The colors of this yarn are deep and saturated, and anything with too much pattern going on was going to fight against both the dark colors and the sparkle. I don't know when or how the Clapotis came to mind, but once it did, it was clearly the perfect solution.
There was one problem - it was fingering (the Clapotis is for light worsted), and I didn't have enough yardage. So I did a little reconfiguring and turned that puppy into the perfect scarf.
This past summer I found myself in need of a "brightly colored scarf" (I sing in a local choir, and this was a dress requirement for our Memorial Day concert). It was going to be hot in the concert venue, and Noro Taiyo Sock had the ideal mix of bright colors and cotton content - it took about 10 seconds for me to decide to make another modified Clapotis.
I couldn't love it more.
- Project: Clapotis, by Kate Gilbert from Knitty, Fall 2004
- Yarn: Dream in Color Starry, color Amethyst Ink (upper pic), and Noro Taiyo Sock, color 09 (lower pic)
- Needles: US 5 and US 7, respectively
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