Making Nupps

I love 3 dimensional crochet.  I also love to knit especially when the weather is cold outside.  A few year's ago I disovered nupps in knitting and designed a heart wrap for Valentine's season.  These little "bobbles" in knitting add an extra dimension to the work but can be a real challenge.  Here is the easiest way I found to make these little jewels.



Nupps are made using two rows. On the first row (the knit row on a stockinette stitch) where a nupp is located is simply made doing a (knit, yarn over, knit, yarn over, knit, yarn over, knit) all in one stitch. The first and last stich is always a knit stich. They need to be as loosely made as possible, by pulling the yarn up.



In thicker yarn nupps usually are made by adding 5 to 7 extra stitches in this one stitch.  In really fine yarn they are usually made with 7 to 9 extra stitches in one stitch.  The pattern will usually tell you how many extra stitches to add.  Because this yarn is so fine, this pattern calls for 9 stitches in the one stitch.

The rest of the row is worked and the work is turned over for the second row.  (In a stockinette stitch, this is a purl row.)  In the second row all these extra stitches are purled together as one.   This is the hardest part of nupps and I found a great trick to making these.  Purl on the row until you come to the extra stitches.  Find a crochet hook that will work with your yarn.  Put all the nupp stitches on the crochet hook.

Yarn over with your working yarn and pull it through all these stitches.

Finally, place this one stitches back on your right hand needle and work across the rest of the row.

The other thing I learned to watch for on the purl row is to be careful not to purl the first few stitches of the nupp into the row as this will cause your stitch count to be off.  Using this method really made nupps a whole lot easier for me.  I really like the end result of that extra dimension to the design.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's day.