All the nupps that’s fit to print.

I am well and truly enamored with the nupp. It makes a fat little rosebud of a stitch, trapped in a pond of stockinette like a fly in amber.

I am somewhat less fond of the needles with which I am knitting. I remember when I bought my first pair of Addi Lace needles. Love at first stitch! In comparison, the far more gently rounded point of an Addi Turbo is like trying to knit with your big toe; it's good enough for plain stitches in fat yarn, a significant improvement over the Clover bamboo needles I had used for awhile after my old Quicksilver needles got lost or gave up the ghost.

When I was a kid, I knit everything on Susan Bates aluminum needles from the five and dime. Using, mostly, Red Heart yarn when it was still all wool and Wintuk was the new synthetic kid on the block. I remember feeling profligate at spending maybe $30 on the [good] wool I used for the fisherman knit sweater I knit the children’s father our first Christmas. It would be like spending $300 on designer yarn now.

But I digress. The point [tee hee] toward which I was ambling, is that not only has my taste in yarn improved considerably over the years, but my desire for high quality tools as well.

When I bought my ball winder and umbrella swift a quarter of a century ago, they were near the top of the line. They are still serving me well. My Bernina, inherited from Mom, is close to 20 years old and has had two tune-ups in the 13 years I’ve owned it. Quality lasts.

Which is why I’m not as appalled to admit as I would have been even as recently as two years ago, that I am seriously considering the purchase of a $45 circular needle with a stiletto tip. [And also, eventually, that complete set of stealth needles made of carbon fiber. Which come in their own red leather case. *pant!pant!*] If I am as happy making the 145th nupp as I was the one I made an hour or so ago, then I will be buying that Nancy Bush book on Estonian knitting, and I will be ponying up for a needle that would (in theory at least) make scooping up seven loops and turning them into a nupp every bit as much fun as swing-dancing with Brother Yummy.

There is a dance in Dallas tonight. There is another one in Denton tomorrow night. But Danny Boy, the nupps, the nupps are calling, from glen to glen and down the mountainside. It’s I’ll be heeeeeeeerrrrre [big finish], in lamplight or in shadow, oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love nupps so!