I’ve knitted a clapotis before, for my daughter, but wanted a very special one for myself to wear to the Clapo-tea party on the first day of the 2010 UK Knit Camp. I spotted that a LYS was stocking Alpaca yarn from Fallowfield Farm, which is only about 25 miles from where I live. I intend to take a small skein of this yarn for the international Yarn Swap that is taking place during or after the Tea Party - I thought it would be lovely to offer a yarn that was very local to me.

I was delighted to find I could have the yarn dyed to any colours I wanted, so I asked for shades of bluebell and hyacinth. I don’t know who did the actual dyeing, but they did a super job - some of my most favourite shades all combined in one yarn.

The photos don’t really do it justice - it is even more beautiful than it looks.

The yarn is very soft and light. I played round a bit with different sized needles. The original clapotis pattern is written for Aran weight, but I chose to use a 4ply weight because I wanted a very light ‘shawl’ that would be comfortable to wear even on a warm evening, but large enough to wrap around in layers for if the weather was cool. The 3.75mm seems to be giving me the right balance between having ‘solid’ strips of knitting between the ‘ladders’ in the clapotis, but keeping the very light airy feel.
I’ll have to knit more pattern repeats than in the original pattern to get the large size I want.

The finished clapotis is a massive 85 inches long and 33 inches wide, but it is so fine and light that it really does do the job for being a single layer summer evening wrap, while still wrapping round my neck several times for serious winter warmth. I’m writing this about 2 months after finishing it, and in the meantime my pattern notes have gone astray, but I’ve counted up and there are 45 ‘ladders’.

You’ll need to look at the large version of the photos to get an idea of the actual size of the finished item. If I were a lot younger (and a lot slimmer) I could probably get away with going to the Clapo-tea party wearing nothing but my clapotis - fear not, I shall spare everyone that alarming sight!

Note about how the yarn is wearing
The yarn is beautifully soft and gives the clapotis a lovely drape. It is pilling a little - I’d be cautious about using this myself in a sweater/cardigan that I was planning to wear a lot.
I’ve not yet had to wash it, although it has been worn a lot over the past winter. It gets scrunched up in bags etc and comes out looking very good.