Sorry about the long silence here. I was in the techno-void of Parent Land for the holidays, and since we’ve been back we’ve been working on some improvements to the blog, but our tinkering seems to have unleashed a bug we haven’t figured out yet. I say “we” because Mr. Garter is my technical enabler in blog land, and he deserves public thanks for the support and encouragement he gives me. But this time even he is stumped. It’s something to do with the photos, and we may have uncovered a secret battle for supremacy between Flickr and Gallery. At any rate, it’s stymied my attempts to post in 2006. So I’m trying a photo-less post for now.

I know you’re all waiting for pictures of my father’s finished sweater, and I’ve got some great ones. I used the excellent Dadcam, an Olympus E300 digital SLR, for a dramatic photo shoot on top of Mt. Young. (The techno-void warps a little around my dad, allowing him to surface in the 21st century and utilize technology that isn’t operable by most parents.) Mr. Garter and I have almost decided that the new model, the E500, will be our combined wedding and Christmas present to each other, so it was fun to play with my dad’s camera, and I was impressed by its capabilities. So look for the image quality to improve around here once I figure out how to post pictures again!

In the meantime, here are some things I’m proud of having accomplished in 2005, and some goals for 2006.

Notches in the Knitterly Bedpost:

1. Lace. I took a big leap into the deep end last February when I decided to attempt the Baltic Sea Stole as a wedding day accessory. I worked through my initial horror of mohair and charts, stuck to my goal of one repetition per week, and even survived a couple of disasters with the cat and a week of lost work when I got overconfident and knit the wrong half of the chart. I ripped out more than a thousand stitches ten days before the wedding, but still finished in time, although Mia had to come to my rescue at the eleventh hour and weave in the ends while I was shaving my legs and putting on my makeup.

2. Design. I conceived and knit an original gansey for my father, with the help of my heroes Barbara Walker and Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. It included a lot of traveling stitches, faggoting, and detailed textural work.

3. Charts. I drew charts for said gansey that actually worked for knitting both flat and in the round. I also made a chart for a complicated mitten pattern (which I haven’t shown you yet).

4. Socks. I made my first pair of socks in June and July, and I was instantly hooked. I never thought I’d be a sock knitter (why bother? It’s really a lot of tiny stitches for something you’re going to put on your feet and wear through in a few months), but now I can’t stop making the things. I’m on my seventh pair, not counting baby booties. And they’ve taught me about short rows and Kitchener, which have become invaluable techniques for me.

And the goals? Frog and re-knit Charlotte. Finish my second lace shawl, Lotus Blossom. Try entrelac. Try fair isle. Do some charity knitting. Submit a design or two for publication. Blog more regularly, at least thrice weekly. The list goes on, and I’m glad. For me, knitting is still a vast country only partially mapped, and I couldn’t be more pleased to find my appetite for exploration undiminished after my first year. Onward.