Bamboo Citron

There are over 12,000 Citron projects on Ravelry.

Here's mine:

Citron (mine ravelled here),

knit in Habu Textiles XS-45 20/3 Bamboo, colorway 7

I bought this yarn on our visit to Manhattan in 2014. I assumed bamboo wouldn't stretch like wool, so I picked a pattern that didn't need to be aggressively blocked. When it was time to block this, I used blocking wires across the top and just patted the rest of it in place. I was afraid I'd lose the ruffle at the bottom if I pinned it. Result: Ruffle intact.

I added a sixth section. I had a bit of yarn left, but not enough that I could have squeezed a seventh section out. The knitting is not hard at all. The darker stripes are made by doubling the number of stitches in the previous row, knitting those for awhile, then decreasing back down. There's no typical lace pattern, so wasn't a big deal when I  accidentally knit two stitches together or added an extra stitch. Because the yarn was so thin compared to the needles, I did have to watch my knitting all the time. With socks, sometimes I can knit without looking, which makes it easier to do other Very Important Activities, such as watching episodes of Doctor Who. I couldn't do that with this project, which explains why my project page is highly skewed toward socks. :)

The finished Citron is very light, so light that I'm wearing it with a t-shirt and skirt today to work. I wouldn't have thought that was possible in June in the Midwest, but it feels fine. Bamboo really is much cooler than most other fibers.

I feel about the Citron the same way I felt about the Clapotis. I'm not sure what made it go viral, what made every knitter on the planet desperate to knit the pattern, but I like it and am glad I made it.