Clap-otis

Look, I KNOW it's pronounced "clap-oh-tee" because it is French and should be in an outrageous French accent and come with expensive and extremely bitter coffee and a croissant.

What I also know is that so far, this pattern is kicking my tush.

It looks simple enough.

EVERYONE AND THEIR GRANDMOTHER has ALREADY knit one successfully.

But, for some reason, I haven't made much progress.

Probably, some of it is mental because this pattern consists of intentionally knitting stitches that you will intentionally drop later in order to form a lacy pattern. And I can't intentionally knit something that I KNOW I will unravel. Perhaps it's because I have spent a lot of time trying to recover from UNINTENTIONALLY dropping stitches that I NEVER meant to unravel.

But I really want to make one.

And I'm offended that everyone and their grandmother are smarter than I am, and have managed to knit multiples of these.

You have to realize that it is knit on the bias, which means diagonally. So, it starts with a few stitches and increases exponentially until it reaches some mystical right dimensions, at which point you increase on one end and decrease on the other so that it remains the same width until you have the length you want... and then it reduces until it's a rectangle... or actually, more of a parallelogram. Who knew you'd EVER do something that honestly required the word parallelogram as an adult!?!

So, the least I can do is make myself feel better by calling it a clap-otis.

Which sounds vaguely dirty.

Like they should make a cream for that.

And why am I annoying myself like this?

Well, it really is a lovely finished product. While I would normally never be peer-pressured into knitting something because all the other cool kids were doing it (because honestly, there isn't a lot of peer pressure to be a "cool" knitter), I have seen a million pictures of this done in virtually every color and style of yarn, and they are all lovely. And I'd like one for myself, and I can think of someone who should really have one too.

And people say that although the pattern is a little weird to figure out, once you get it, it's so easy that it's almost boring.

And when you are done, you can look all beautiful and French, and pretend it was all effortless.

"Je suis belle et ça ne demande aucun effort" - which translates to "I'm beautiful, and I don't even try"...

-k

(All the cool knitting kids. I know you are still pondering that concept.)