Nupps From HELL

I decided to get the Estonian Garden wrap back out since there is no longer any urgency for Colin's ex-sweater (which is now slated to be gifted to a baby to be named later). I have finished the middle of the wrap. But before I get into my rant, which of course I'm going to, I just have to say to you lace knitters out there, if you haven't tried addi turbo for lace needles, you don't know what you are missing. They are awesome beyond words. What a difference they made after doing the bulk of the work with regular needles.

Here is a photo of my finished "middle".

Here is a photo (from the pattern) of the border that I attempted to start last night.

Because the photo is crappy, you can 't see the "nupps", but they're there. I read the pattern, I practiced on old yarn, and I got it without any problem. But there was a problem. At the end of the first nupp row, which is always a right side row, I was proud of myself because I had the correct number of stitches and just assumed I did everything right. On row two, everything was screwed up. I did this SIX times! I finally had to put another 8 row repeat on the body of the shawl just to finally use that beat up yarn so I don't keep abusing it trying to figure this out. And don't even get me started on how difficult it is to purl the 5 nupp stitches together, even WITH addi turbos for lace! My problem, obviously, is in trying to stay in sequence with the pattern on the initial row, although every time I did it, I had the correct number of stitches at the end, so that really doesn't make any sense. And the pattern can't be wrong. Too many people have made this and there is no mention anywhere of errata. So. Frustrating.

My plan of attack at this point is to find a simpler border. Something easy that will still look nice. I'm open to suggestions. I really truly do not want to revisit the original instructions. Way too frustrating!

Candle Countdown... getting there slowly.

Since yesterday was a bank holiday, I lit the little bugger before I went to work knowing DH would be home all day. (heh heh)