You’d think that light, airy lace would be light and easy knitting, wouldn’t you? Well, maybe you wouldn’t. I guess just looking at it tells you it’s complicated (and that’s why it’s so much fun!). Still, I had no idea when I started Irtfa’a just how much I’d be stretching my brain. I can practically feel the neurons growing; it’s amazing. 6 rows and I’m done for the night. My brain just stops, and I’m done, whether I want to knit on it obsessively or not. If I try to push it, I just start making silly mistakes, and lots of them. It’s like knitting weight lifting. I guess it should get easier as I go? Even with my currently limited endurance, I have made it to row 17 of the shoulder increases at the top of the shawl. I have about 2.5 inches of good, solid knitting under my belt on this project, which I’m pretty happy about, especially considering how little I can do in one sitting.

It is actually a really easy pattern to see, so I’m not sure why my brain is slogging so much. I guess it’s just that I’m not used to following charts. I actually forgot that the chart rows are reversed for WS rows on my swatch. I thought it was wierd to have a garter stitch lace; I didn’t remember that it looked like garter in Anne’s pictures. Well, that’s because it wasn’t. As with all charts, this one is written showing the stitches from the right side, so when you work the wrong side you have to invert the stitches, and knit every time it says purl, etc. This really isn’t difficult, but I just plain out forgot. So, I have a garter stitch lace swatch. I’ll be interested to see how it compares with the right pattern when I finish this section. There’s definitely a lot of detail that it’s missing, and it has a much fuzzier appearance than the correct pattern that I’ve worked so far. The nice thing about having gotten it wrong in the swatch is that I overestimated how much attention I’d have to pay to the wrong side rows. In the garter version, I really couldn’t see or follow the lace pattern much at all in the piece, so I had to really read the chart for every single row. The stockinette version is muuuuuch easier to see, and I can pretty much do the WS rows without the chart, which does help to speed things up a bit. Once I knew that I needed to invert the WS rows, I realized that I really didn’t need them after all. Funny, huh? I love the lace pattern, and I am really enjoying working it. I find myself fighting not to put it down, even though I know that it is a bad idea to keep going once the brain is gone for the night.

So, now that I have used up any brain cells that made it through the day (today was an uber-Monday after the break…), I think I’m going to work on the sweater; some light knitting should be nice for the rest of the evening. =)

One last post for this morning. Branden built me a collapsible light box frame the other day, which we’re experimenting with using for blog photos during the dark Seattle winter. He’s created an instructible for it, which you can view here, if you’re interested in seeing how he did it. They even chose to feature his post on the front page!

Every year Branden and I go on a photo excursion in January to see the bald eagles in the Skagit River Valley. They migrate at this time of year, following the salmon. I believe that this is the biggest congregation of eagles in the continental US, though I don’t remember where I read that. Usually we end up going after the peak, and count about 20 birds in a couple of hours along the 8 mile stretch of highway that follows the river. This year, we decided to catch it earlier, and went up yesterday. We counted 51 birds on the way out, and 34 on the way back (many of those are probably duplicates). This is our first year with the new camera (Nikon D80), and we’re really happy with the results. There are some photos here if you’re interested. You can click on them up to 5 times to more resolution (they get bigger every time you click, but take longer to load). Right clicking should let you download them, if you should happen to want an eagle background for your computer. If you want to pass them along to others or use them in any way, please request a creative commons license from Branden. If you’re in the Seattle area and have a free day before the end of January, I would highly recommend a field trip to Skagit. It’s simply amazing to see these birds in person.

I’ve been thinking about what I’ve knit in the past year, and am looking forward to the projects that I’d like to do in 2008. Here’s the short list of things from last year:

Scarves (11)
Hats (1)
Handwarmers (2 pair)
Sweaters (3 adult, one child)
Stoles/shawls/shrugs (4)
Socks (5 pair)
Bags (1)
Stuffed elephant (1)
Halter top (1)

I have pictures of some of these, and I promise that I will make a photo gallery of finished objects sooner or later.

Things to work on in the new year:

Knitting grammary swatches
Finish an afghan that I started
Finish the cable sweater
Irtfa’a
2 lace stoles for friends (I have the people picked, but not the projects)
Try double-stranded knitting (I know, it’s simple, but I’ve never tried it)
Colorwork
Knit socks one inside the other
Reverse knitting (knitting flat without turning your work)
Spinning
Dyeing

Actually use Ravelry (there’s so much there that I haven’t explored!)
Gallery of FOs
Work on photo skills
Blog the spinning stuff (I have a post that I’ve been meaning to write about
spinning adventures, and just haven’t gotten around to it yet…)

Think that’s enough to get me started? Happy New Year!