I have spent over 20 hours in a car in the last 36 hours. The only thing that kept me sane was the massive amount of knitting I was able to accomplish and the brief stop at IKEA.
However, I discovered what Heather meant when she said that the only annoying part of the Swallowtail Shawl were the nupps, and I don’t think I fully understood the emphasis on the knitting the row before the purl 5 together loosely. Oh my goodness, if my needles were sharp enough I would have poked my eyes out with them. Basically, you k1, yo, k1, yo, k1 into one stitch and then on the way back you purl all five of those babies together and it’s a lot harder than just a plain ol’ p5tog because of the way the stitches are all in one stitch. Essentially I ended up using my size 1 bamboo sock needle to get all the stitches together, then I purled them all together and transferred the one stitch back to my Addi and knit on to the next nupp. I only made it through a row and a half of them because I started to get sleepy and kept messing up my stitch count. We will see how the next 20 rows or so go. My love affair with lace may end too soon.
Also, if you are anywhere near NYC you should go see The Mystery of Irma Vep it’s just brilliant and only $18, catch it before it takes off and you can’t even get a seat!
I’m working on a hat with *expletive* bobbles, and when I was browsing it on ravelry someone said something about using a crochet hook for the p3togs — maybe you could try that?
Don’t end your love affair with lace - just avoid anything that says Lily of the Valley (=NUPPS!!!)