nupps on a plane

I was really excited for our ten plus hours worth of flights back to the States, because I love knitting on planes and was hoping to get through my much neglected Swallowtail Shawl, which I started on the plane ride to Peru and then pretty much didn't touch for three months. I was making pretty good time, too, until I hit the dreaded nupp section. I'd never knit nupps before, but figured I could just follow the instructions and everything would be okay - right? Which was fine, until I got to the purl row, which literally took me an hour. I had to pick up the stitches with my fingernails to purl them. 

Fortunately, we landed in Houston for a connection not long after, and I was able to look up nupp techniques on my cell phone. The most useful one I found was, while making your nupps by K1, YO, K1, YO, K1 into the same stitch, just YO twice for each YO; then, on the purl row, you can slip those YOs into one really loose stitch, which makes the purling insanely easier. After that, I was actually looking forward to making nupps, though this shawl is still littered with mistakes - so here's hoping they're not too noticeable in the end? 

Hello from Peru!

Hello from Peru! For the next few months, my boyfriend and I will be volunteering with an NGO up in the Andes that works with local weavers; I'll know more about what we're actually doing once arrive, but in general, details about our travels can be found over here, at my non-knitting centered blog, which has served to reassure my many non-knitting relatives that I've been keeping warm and eating properly for the last few years. 

We've only been here two days, but I'm really liking Peru so far, even if it it's freezing. We've already encountered a number of alpaca, real and otherwise:

... and also seen lots of women knitting things, including some truly awesome Batman finger puppets that I'll try to post photos of later. 

Though I'm not totally sure what the internet situation will be like once we reach our town, I have enough yarn in my suitcase to last me way more than the three months we'll be here, including a few skeins of Bay Area yarn to remind me of home; I started a Swallowtail shawl on the plane, using the Thornill Lace I bought at Piedmont Yarn and Apparel back in Oakland, and have not yet decided what to do with this crazy gorgeous yarn from Pigeonroof Studios: 

Hopefully something good! Anyway, hello from Peru, and talk to you soon from the Andes :)