As I might have mentioned before, my official WIP these days is the Mary Lennox shawl. Its a circular shawl that was published as a mystery Knit-A-Long on ravelry. The knit-a-long is finished and the mystery is over and I am still plugging away.

It is my official WIP, the one I talk about when someone asks what I’m working on. But… there are others. There have been whole projects that have gone from cast-on to finish off. Little things like head bands and yarn bowls. The projects are just short breaks, just diversions. I haven’t forgotten about Miss Mary, really I haven’t. In fact I spend time with her every week that drags by, doing a few rows….

The problem lately is that I’m in the nupp section. That’s section 3, made with Option A for those who are familiar with the pattern. The designer gave us poor knitters all kinds of options in this one and that’s one of the things I LOVE about it. There are options for the shape (circle, half-circle, or three-quarter circle), options for lace motif in almost every section, there are options for beads, options for divider sections….

So I could have not done nupps. Absolutely. I choose to do them. All 144 of them.

These are big nupps. Nine stitchers. I can do nupps the right way, the traditional way, when they are the baby 5-stichers. I can manage when they are respectable 7-sticthers. Knowing I was facing big, honking nine-stitchers (and 144 of them, did I mention that?) I didn’t even try. I went right to a cheat.

There are lots a ways to cheat a nupps. Must be that I’m not the only knitter who needs help. So I had lots to pick from. Here is how I do mine:

I make the nupp (knit one, yarn over, knit one….) on the right side of the work. Then I pull my left needle free and insert the tip of that left needle into the front of all nine stitches. Next is the tricky bit. I take my right needle, that is currently behind my left, and bring it down…under…. and to the front of my left needle, without dropping any stitches (that’s the tricky part). Now I can turn to the back side of the work and purl them together.

So its a nupp, a real nupp. It just gets purled together right away instead of as you work the next row. Those pesky yarn overs don’t get a chance to move around and pull tight on you. Also, if you make a nupp and hate the way it looks (which is about a third of the time for me!) you’re right there. You can just pull it out and re-do it.

I have one more row of nupps to go. Then its off to the next section!

Then there will be no more nupps for awhile. I’m all nupped out.

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