going to be inundated by hats

I've gone a little beret-crazy in the last week. I knit two brioche berets in the space of three days, so now I have three. This one is the Tree Beret from Nancy Marchant's website. The yarn is Bernat Alpaca Natural Blends again, in Fern and Tomato. These knit up fast because I'm using bulky yarn. I have plans for at least a couple more to use up the yarn. And I cast on a tam with some handspun I finally finished a while ago, but haven't gotten past the ribbing yet. Basically, unless I decide to give them away, I'm going to have a lot of distinctive hats to wear this fall. I can be one of those quirky grad students.

I also finished the Raha Scarf I was knitting (pattern is from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush). I had this discontinued yarn I picked up at the thrift store. It's a wool, somewhere around a DK weight. You can't see it in the picture, but the yarn has some glints of green and lavender that add a nice depth to the blue. It was a great pattern. I had it memorized about half-way through. It ended up over five and a half feet long. It's going to be a belated birthday gift for my mum.
I'm still working on the Skew socks but I'm on the short row section of the leg on the second sock, so they're almost finished. And then when they are I can hide my 2 mm circs in my knitting bag and pretend they don't exist. This is the second pair of socks I've knit on circs and I don't like it it any better this time than I did last time. I'm definitely a DPN girl. When I finish these, I'll get back to one of my other pairs of socks that's been neglected. I'm knitting Skew for SKA's April challenge, so it has to be finished by the end of this month. Maybe I'll get it done today.

jumping on the Clapotis bandwagon

As I wrote in an earlier post, I've been working on a Clapotis. Here's the story:

Shortly after I learned to knit, I discovered Knitty.com and spent a long time browsing their archives. I remember running across the pattern for the Clapotis scarf and thinking it looked nice. Then I joined Ravelry and found out that Clapotis is one of the most popular projects on there and that there are thousands upon thousands of the scarves in existence.
I hadn't really intended to knit one, but I had this lovely rose-coloured ribbon yarn in my stash that I'd gotten in a destash swap a few months earlier and thought three skeins of it might make a smaller sized Clapotis. So I cast on one evening.

I only did 2 repeats of the increase rows, noted where the yarn for the first skein ran out (two repeats of main pattern), didn't bother counting my repeats for the second skein, and then worked two more repeats after joining the third skein and started the decreases. So it's a much smaller version, but it turned out well. I like it.


One of the the delights of this pattern is the dropping of the stitches. It has an illicit feel, since dropping stitches is usually bad and I've taken the time to learn how to pick them back up properly. It's counter-intuitive, but it's very fun. The pattern is easy to knit and after a couple repeats, not hard to remember. And the finished product goes well with a dress of mine, so I am looking forward to wearing it with the dress (once I adjust the shoulder straps on the dress, since it was designed for a somewhat more well-endowed woman than I).

It did feel a little strange to knit something that's been so popular. I usually try to avoid that, out of a misplaced stubbornness. However, Clapotis has been a popular pattern for the reason that it is a good pattern and the result is lovely. So, that's okay, then. It gets to me when something mediocre is popular, but when it's excellent, then I'm happy to go along with the crowd.

update!

Seemed like it was time for an update. I keep writing partial entries and then not finishing them. Some of them will get finished when there are pictures to accompany them.

Well, I do have socks on the needles, as per usual. Working on the second Skew sock. First one turned out great and fits like a glove (although not literally since most store-bought gloves are too big for me). The heel was a lot of fun and the grafting wasn't hard. I bought the Spring issue of Interweave Knits almost solely for the grafting tutorial. Also for the ad with Franklin Habit in it. And the Wasabi Peas socks. I have 1 sock out of 2 finished on another pair of socks from Socks from the Toe Up. My goal is to eventually knit each pattern in the book.

And, strangely enough, I have two scarves on the needles. This is unusual because I don't really like knitting scarves. I never did a garter stitch scarf like most beginners do. I knit a moss stitch scarf last year to use up a ball of yarn and a narrow ribbed scarf for my little brother as a birthday gift. There have been shawls, some cowls, and a head scarf, and I crocheted a scarf as a Christmas gift a couple years ago when all I could do was what I thought was single crochet but turned out to be slip stitch. And still, so far, I've only knit a couple scarves.

Part of this is that I have a couple pashmina scarves which get worn all the time in the fall and winter. One is brown, the other cream. They are comfortable and warm enough and long enough and coordinate well with my wardrobe, which is mostly brown with a few other earth tones and the occasional red shirt thrown in. So part of it is I haven't felt the need to knit myself another scarf. The friends who wear scarves already have lots. And most of my family members are not scarf people, other than the younger brother who specifically requested a scarf (and when I gave it to him, wore it on a very warm April day, even though it was wool).

The other part is that scarves are kind of boring to knit. This is why I rarely knit plain stockinette socks (Skew doesn't count--its construction is complicated enough that much of it has been knit in front of the computer so I wouldn't have to print the pattern out). So a scarf, for me, has to be interesting enough that I'm not going to get bored. I'm thinking of trying one that has reversible cables just to learn the technique.

Right now, though, I felt the need to knit something simple that would use up stash yarn. I got this rose pink ribbon yarn in a de-stash swap a few months back and have been idly debating patterns ever since (I think it was from Holly but I'm not sure). Then it came to me. I could give a wildly popular pattern a try and use up the yarn at the same time. So I cast on a Clapotis (smaller size, though). I'm almost done with ball 2 out of 3 and am happy with the result. I can knit a couple of the main repeat with the third ball before I have to start the decreases. I should have not too much yarn left at the end.

And then a couple nights ago, I was tired but not sleepy and wanted to knit something before I went to sleep, but didn't want to take the Clapotis to bed with me. I grabbed some wool I'd found at the thrift store (really nice blue with a hint of green in one of the plies), and started a pattern I've had in my queue for a while. This one is from Knitted Lace of Estonia, and it is the Raha Scarf. One repeat of a lace pattern, garter stitch edges. Interesting but not too complex. And I'll just knit until I have enough yarn left for the border and finish it off there.

And that's all for now. I need to sleep.