He's got all the things you need and some that you will never

Recently (ish) finished: a scarf for E who was leaving town for a somewhat less sunny place. I started with this gorgeous skein of 4ply handpainted New Zealand merino. These photos don't capture the colour very well: it was actually quite dark, with black, and various dark to light purple shades. E actually visited while I had it out on the table, winding it into balls, and confirmed that she liked the colours (I knew she would), without knowing I intended to make something for her.

I kind of learned the hard way how not to handle a skein when winding it into balls for knitting. I ended up with a large tangle of wool for quite a while, but I persisted and got it tamed. I concluded that you really need to wrap the opened-out skein around something and not just sit it loosely on a table as you pull from it to wind a ball. To be honest, I kind of knew this was a bad idea, but it was the kind of bad idea you just have to try to be sure.


I used the Clapotis pattern for the third time, this time on a much smaller scale and with the kind of self-striping yarn that it was intended for. I loved watching the stripes come out and especially watched for when the a section of one colour would land on top of the same colour in the previous row. A mini- kind of pooling, I guess. I guess my brain really likes patterns - hence the satisfaction from knitting even pretty simple boring things - and watching for such little variations is
an extra kick.
When it came off the needles it was quite narrowly twisted in on itself. Luckily, as I had hoped, simply washing it and gently pulling it into shape while drying was enough - I didn't want to have to block or steam it, as I didn't want it totally flattened. What I love about Clapotis is the lovely texture, and the contrast between the 'right' and 'wrong' sides, both of which look great.