Oh, ******* ****!

A new expletive has entered my vocabulary – “Oh, nupping hell!”

When I got my shawl home yesterday, ready to purl back across the last row of the last repeat of chart2, I found I had a wrong stitch count. I tinked back all the way to the beginning of the repeat. It took all afternoon. Then I knitted the chart up again and began on the Lily of the Valley Chart 1. The first two rows were great – knit and purl and only 4 YOs to do. Then I began the nupps. Forming the extra loops is easy and I took care to make them very loose. Purling them together on the way back? Dreadful. Just dreadful. I’ve just finished row 4 this morning, having gone to bed in disgust last night.

And the thing is, I really loathe bobbles in knitting. Hate ’em. So why am I making them? because it wouldn’t be Lily of the Valley without them? or to prove  a point? or because I am masochistic? Who knows!

The nupps themselves look horrible, really messy – at least at the beginning of the row. The later ones, where I deployed a thinner needle to knit the loops together, are far better.

What to do? Googling yesterday threw up several approaches:

  • leave the nupps out
  • use a crochet hook
  • use a fine needle
  • deploy a psso approach
  • deploy a k2 tog, k2 tog, move stitches back and k2 tog again, then psso
  • there are no doubt others too…

I’ll stick with the fine needle assistance approach for now, and try to make nupps-as-intended-by-the-designer.

The yarn is going a long way. I’ve gone from purple, through red and orange to green and pale blue, with a significant size of ball remaining. I have 3 more balls left – and am 42% done. I could have enlarged the shawl by doing more buds… either way, I shall have plenty of yarn left over. It’s looking like there’s about enough for two shawls, but I don’t think I’ll chance that.

Having recently discovered the existence of twined knitting, I’m thinking that this Kauni yarn would be perfect for a twined hat and mittens. I just need to find a really good tutorial.

Here’s a thought – I separated the Kauni out so that all the balls began and ended in the same place, more or less, in the colour sequence. When this ball runs out, do I carry on as-is,  or do I rewind the ball and reverse the colour progression? I can’t quite decide but I think I am leaning in the latter direction.

In the post today – my parcel from Lacis. I have the Lyra leaflet and The Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting, plus a nice 2mm circular needle for my doyly exercises. I think I might settle down to browse the book this afternoon, once the charms of the  nupps have begun to pale…

Anyone got a copy of Two-end Knitting that they want to sell? It’s way more expensive over here than it is in the States, and Amazon don’t stock it here. I can get it from the US but I’m impatient and don’t want to wait a month to get hold of it.