NUPPS!! Weeeee! Pattern instructions on replacing nupps with beads reads “Beads may be substituted for nupps as desired. If beading in place of nupps in the spacer rows, you will need about 2,400 beads…” Does that mean that this baby has 2400 nupps???!!! Hee-heeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Clue Schedule
Clue 1: July 5, 2014 Center and path
Clue 2: July 19, 2014 Wall
Clue 3: August 2, 2014 Garden Chart 1
Clue 4: August 16, 2014 Garden Chart 2
Clue 5: August 30, 2014 Garden Chart 3
Clue 6: September 14, 2014 Garden Charts 4-5 and border

8 July 2014
Finally got my beads and started! Beads are:
Miyuki 8/0 round, cut sea foam lined CR (Item #8C-92780-TB), 6 tubes
Miyuki, 8/0 round, Picasso Seaform Green, Item #8-94514-TB

Decided to use the Picasso for the Key, and then the sparkling stuff for the rest. But I’m not substituting nupps! I LOVE nupps! I just got 6 because I didn’t want to run out! It was hard to figure out how many I’d need, and I’m doing the full-circle version. Anyway, just finished the 4th increase round, and I’m randomly placing purl stitches in the next 24 rounds, and have marked off where the beaded key chart will be worked.

This thing was INCREDIBLY fiddly in the beginning-- 8 stitches in laceweight and then joined in a round. It took about 7 tries and several different methods-- Emily Ocker, Disappearing loop, etc. Finally found joy with a regular cast on and Knit Picks’ size US2.5 (which fitted into my size US3 slot on my gauge tool thingy) double points. I think it was the combination of shorter and lighter needles and the laceweight that made it possible to knit without twisting or having the needles fall out. Anyway, switched to US4 about half-way through the 12 rounds of plain knitting after increase round 3. Barely noticeable! So glad, too!

9 July 2014
Finished Clue 1. My key is very well hidden! The random purl stitches thing turned out just fine. Just an over-all random texture. I only added the purl stitches every other round. Not sure if that was the designer’s intentions, but it is finished. 256 stitches on the needle, awaiting Clue 2!

22 July 2014
Printed Clue 2 and started on Saturday afternoon. Finished last night around 8:55pm. It’s about 22 inches across. Sigh… It’s gonna be a long wait til the next clue drops!

2 August 2014
The Nupps Are Here!!!! 256 nupps in row 2. A YO in between each nupp. 2304 stitches added, 2560 stitches total! Will now reduce it back down to 512 stitches. There are more nupps coming, and I’m ready for ‘em! Just call me the Nuppinator! “I’ll be back!”

3 August 2014
Oh boy. Discovered 2 mistakes in my nupped row. First mistake was easy enough to fix-- for some reason, I did a nupp, yo, k1, yo, nupp in the sea of all those nupps stitches. So, I ripped out just the two nupps on either side of my error and reworked two 5-stitch nupps and one 7 stitch nupp. Easy peasy. Close to the end, I discovered that I only had 15 nupps in one repeat section. I’m supposed to have 16 nupps in each repeat! I counted about 7 times before I accepted defeat. That, my friends, was a fatal error. I could see that in the row before, my last YO had dropped unnoticed. SIGH! So, I tinked back to row 1 of Clue 3 (and that wasn’t that bad-- i could stick my needle into the stitch that held the nupp stitch itself and then frog 2 rows worth for that stitch in one go. Only (“only,” hahahah!) took an hour. Did that before going to bed last night. This morning, I reworked row 2, the nupps row. And counted obsessively! So. I can now say that I’ve worked 511 nupps so far, even though only 256 of them remains…. Mwuahahah! Decided to bead the single stitch framed by the YO’s in this clue as well. They’re very sparkly beads, so it’s like the little signs of life in the garden. :-)

4 August 2014
Did a little math this morning. Clue 3 has 256 nupps in the spacer row, 12 nupps in each section (6 nupps per chart repeat, chart worked twice). That adds up to 384 nupps in the charted portion, and 640 nupps total. 1760 more nupps to go!

12 August 2014
Whew--Finally finished Clue 3 at 5:10 this morning, Let’s see, I did Option A of Clue 3, and it’s about 31 inches across, stitches held on 2 circular needles, one is 40” and the other is 60” , so it’s 100” in circumference. There are 640 nupps, and 448 beads. Wow! This is a lot of fun! Can’t wait for the next Clue (Saturday the 16th, whooo-hooooo!!!)

By the way, some of the spoiler pictures of Option B of Clue 3 is amazing-- the finished knitting looks like very lacy butterflies. We have the option to repeat Clues 3-4 to make the shawl larger, and I just might do that just to try out the other options (Clues 3-4 has 2 different options; Clue 5, I believe, is the knitted on edging). So if I do that, obviously I won’t have enough time to finish this in time for the Recycled Lamb’s shawl contest, but I have something up my sleeve for that! ;-)

Also, I used a steel hook for the first repeat of the clue 3 chart, and then tried my beadle thingy for the 2nd repeat that many of my lace knitting buddies highly recommended. My thoughts-- I love that I don’t have to keep stopping to re-bead my hook (hook only holds 5-6 beads at a time). However, the beadle is somewhat awkward for me to handle (will probably get better with more use and practice), and the hook part is SO sharp that it keeps snagging my stitch while I’m trying to unhook it from the stitch after getting the bead transferred. So I actually did end up going back to my hook in the last 2 beaded rows of the 2nd repeat of the chart. But the biggest Pro of the beadle over a steel hook is that I understand that I’ll be able to easily get 11/0’s on it! I get the shivers thinking about the possibilities!

23 August 2014
Finished Clue 4, Option A. Don’t know why it took so long. Didn’t enjoy this clue as much as the others, but it’s done! Let’s see, 256 more nupps added, total count 896 nupps.

1 Sept 2014
VERY busy 3-day weekend, not much knitting done. Starting Mary Lennox Clue 5, Garden section 3. 256 more nupps, total count 1152 nupps. Planning on repeating Garden 2, Option B (the nupped one) and Garden 1, Option B (the butterfly one). My math says that will add 1012 spacer row nupps (because an increase will be required), plus double the nupps of Garden 2 Option B, which is…. let’s see….1632??!! What???!!! Yikes…. Oh boy… Gotta think this one through……. IF I do this, then I’ll have, uh….3756 more nupps???? So, uh…4052 nupps total????? Can that be right? Would I even have enough yarn? Last spacer row may have to be beaded instead of nupped. Got plenty of those! Oy!

14 Sept 2014
Finally finished Clue 5 this morning at my mom’s nursing home. Started Clue 6, nupping every single stitch 512 total… Did some up at Lookout Mountain, since hubby and I took a drive up there this afternoon…

From discussion boardre how to know by stitch count if you have enough yardage of yarn left:
“Pi shawls are easier than other shapes as the number of stitches isn’t increasing every round.

For each section, take the number if stitches per row/round, and multiply it by the numbers of rows/rounds. Don’t forget the rest rows. For nupps, you’ll want to add 9 stitches for every nupp.

After you have the stitches for each section determined, add them all together.

eta: I set up charts for stitch counts - if that’s something that I want to keep track of. WSoW has a huge table.“

2 November 2014
Sigh… well, for heaven’s sake. I got back to Mary Lennox 2 weeks ago from a short break to finish other projects, and it is slllllooooooooooooooooooooooow going. Finally finished Garden #4 and the nupps spacer row, adding 512 more nupps to my total nupps count of 1664. Was puzzling why I don’t have anywhere near 2400 nupps when I remembered that I didn’t do the nupps in a circle option for one of the gardens, also thought I’d revisit those gardens now. In any case, it doesn’t seem to be working out to go back, and the next garden has no nupps either (I erroneously assumed that each garden would have a nupps and no-nupps options, but only the 2nd and 3rd did, if I’m remembering correctly. All I know is 4 and 5 has NO nupps options. Didn’t see that coming! Anyway, I’ll only have 512 more nupps (if I decide to do Garden 5), bringing the grand total 224 nupps shy of my 2400 nupps goal. Oh well. I can live with that. I can also live with NOT doing garden 5 (and thus eliminating the last spacer row of nupps before the edging).

I just saw this thing about the Slow Stitching Movement, which makes me want to just relax and do another garden and enjoy it instead of worrying about the mid-November deadline. I could just go ahead and finish up and start my Christmas gifts while working on Mary Lennox (don’t want to put it down and lose the momentum)… or I could just skip the homemade Christmas gifts altogether! Honestly, I just have 1 thing I absolutely WANT to make for a dear friend, another item I MIGHT make for another friend, and the rest-- well, it’s just not their year!

5 Nov 2014
Arrrgh! Garden 5 (both options) is NUTZ! My stitches are a bit too tight to easily work the 5X5 or the 5X9 options. I refuse to fight it for over 10,000 stitches! NO! So, skipping ahead to the border edging. Time to put this baby to bed…. :-(

8 Nov 2014
OOooo! Change of plans! Saw a copy of the Haapsalu Scarf book, and found the PERFECT pattern to substitute for the 5th garden, and it has nupps, too! It’s called Flower Garden Pattern. Very simple, and lovely, and best of all, in repeats of 8 stitches-- PERFECT!

28 March 2014
So, I resumed working on Mary Lennox at the beginning of March in order to get it finished for someone to borrow in April. Just fnished the 5th garden yesterday, which added 512 nupps (2688); and am about 1/2 way through the spacer row before the edging, which will add another 512 nupps-- 3200 total nupps! 800 more than if I’d followed the pattern and opted to do all the nupps! So I am happy. This is a very nupp-tiful project! Will be doing the first option for the edging, due to limited yarn quantities. I think this might be a close call… I may decide to do the edging in a slightly darker shade of this seafoam, just to be on the safe side… Will have to weigh and try to do the math to see if I have enough to do with what I have left or not…

29 March 2015
Eeek! Less than 650 yards left for the edging! thought I read somewhere that between 2000-2700 yards is needed for the edging alone. I’m not sure that’s quite right (the entire project called for up to 3200 yards for the full circle and 2400 nupps, so hard to believe that only 1200 or less was for the body alone). But to be safe, I purchased a partial cone to complete (7.2 oz, or 2268 yards). Also out of this particular colorway and dyelot (a new cone of this colorway was noticeably lighter in color than this one), so I bought a darker hue in the same green family. Kinda disappointed that I have to use a different color, but it IS pretty…. SO, here’s what I did after the final garden: Dnupp, yo; knit all stitches; knit, twisting (ktbl) the nupp stitches, but knitting the others and added a bead to each of the nupp stitches. Change yarn color to new colorway and knit 1 round. Will start edging next (I’m only 1/2 way through the new colorway round). Leaning toward option 1 due to time constraints and fear of how much yarn it will really take to do the edging).