"Nupp" is a four-letter word

This is what I've been working on lately:

The pattern is "Estnisches Tüchlein/Estonian Shawlette", by Susanne Fritzsche. Fantastic little free pattern for a shawlette which uses Estonian stitch motifs. I believe there was only one error in the whole thing: on one row of one of the charts right near the centre stitch, a decrease was incorrectly written as a knit. But it's obvious as you work through the pattern that the decrease needs to be there, otherwise it throws off your whole count. Besides, the decrease is there on the chart for the opposite side of the shawl. Problem easily spotted, and easily fixed.

That photo you see there was taken as I was right in the middle of the section with all the nupps in it. If you're not in the know, a nupp is a very prevalent feature in Estonian lace knitting, it's basically a very nice, subtle bobble. It is achieved by doing a bunch of (K1, YO) into a single stitch on one row, and then purling those all together when you come back on the next row. Sadly, you can't even see the nupps in that shot up there, but TRUST ME, they're there. I know, I knitted the damn suckers. The thing about nupps is that they really are a pain in the tuchus to do. There is no way to keep up a good knitting rhythm on a row where you have to purl together a multitude of stitches a bunch of times. However, I did manage to get the hang of it. The trick is to make your YOs nice and loose on the first row - I kept mine in place as I was doing the Ks after them by holding the YOs down with a finger. This will ensure that when you have to P together all the Ks and YOs, you have a nice loose "tunnel" of stitches to stick your needle through.

The yarn I used for this shawlette is the leftover yarn support for a pattern that will be coming out in a few months. The yarn is called "Luscious", and it's from Kollage Yarns. It's a 63% cotton/37% nylon blend that does split more easily than I would like, and is very slippery for lace (my first attempt at the project was on metallic needles, which was an absolute disaster; I had to rip it all out and switch to bamboo). However, I've done two sample pieces and this lace shawlette out of the stuff, and I have to say that the finished products have all looked fan-freakin'-tastic. Also, as I've previously mentioned, the cotton is not hard on the hands at all. This particular colour is really nice too. It's called "Sea", and it's a lovely dark teal - the picture above shows it off pretty accurately.

And the purpose of this project? It's destined for my older daughter's teacher, as her end-of-the-school-year gift. Which means it has to be finished by the 29th. Not a problem! It's already blocking:

All I have to do is weave in the ends. (That's why I block things wrong-side up.)