Thursday, February 16, 2006

Why I won't win gold for Team Clapotis

This is my Clap for the Knitting Olympics. I'm doing a personal best so far I think. Woo Hoo!!! But its not going to be enough to get gold I'm afraid. I know, I know - It's the trying and sportsmanship that counts. Don't get me wrong I'm still trying for gold becuse wouldnt that be cool!! But since it took Ailsa a month to knit her first Clapotis (and she is a faster knitter than I) I dont think I have much hope.


What you see is about a quarter or slightly less than the whole clap. I'm just about to get to the dropping stitches bit - very exciting!! So today is Day 6, I think and 10 to go. I'm doing the math...... Three quarters to knit and less than three quarters of the time left..... It doesn't look too promising! I'm sure Team Clapotis has some faster knitters by the looks of the team blog. BTW they have a cool counter up there so we can see how much time is left!

I'm knitting it from some georgeous hand painted mercerised cotton by Blue Heron Yarns in Easton Maryland (I have no idea where that is - but I will find out) that I bought at Greenwich Yarns and stitchworks in San Fran. The colourway is called Spanish Dancer which sounds very exotic. It a little thinner than the yarn recommended in the pattern but I still managed close to gauge with 5mm straight needles. Its going to to be a pretty open fabric kinda a clap when its done.


This shot shows the lovely postcard that is the yarn label from Blue Heron Yarns and zillions of little stitch markers that I was making every few rows for the clap (You need 18 or something!!) until I realised (thanks to the Team Clap Blog) that I could just use purl stitches instead of a marker and boy that is working a treat!! The markers are cute and shiny but pretty flimsy as they are only made from bent beading wire and now they are redundant - oh well...

Happy Knitting All :-)