I am! I finished the body of Irtfa’a yesterday, and started on the quill edging today. Some pictures of the finished body:

It’s really nice to be back to short rows (8 to 16 stitches per row in the edging, compared to 466 per row at the end of the quill and feather section). I’m having a hard time “seeing” the lace pattern on the edging, but I haven’t done too many repeats yet, so I probably just need to practice. I worked 5 repeats on the edging, decided that the first one looked funny, pulled them all out, and am back up to 3 again. It’s going pretty fast, though I’m not altogether sure that I like purling through the back loops. Again, I think that’s mainly practice; it’s getting better already, and I’m sure I’ll be fine with it by the end of the project.

I can’t believe I’m already sailing down the home stretch on this pattern! For those that do lace more often, I guess a month is probably a long time to spend on a project like this, but it’s actually a little faster than I’d expected to finish. As I get closer and closer to the end, I’m starting to ask: what next? There are so many more things on my list of techniques to try. I guess that’s the fun thing about knitting; there’s always another project just around the corner!