Hard

It is a personal belief of mine that nothing in knitting is "hard:" there are things that are more fiddly than others, things that may cause a project to take longer than it otherwise would in plain stockinette. But really, when you come down to it, it's all just really two stitches (and their variants), taken, at most, a few stitches at a time. Easy to comprehend, and - when you get enough experience - easy to tell why you're doing what maneuver when.

Lace cables are hard.

No, I do not mean a piece which has lace panels and cable panels - I mean lace in the cables. See swatch:



This little swatch (only 3" square) took me at least two hours. TWO. HOURS. It's tiny. I've got the movements memorized at this point, but I still don't know why I'm doing them exactly, and why I'm doing them when. I really have no clue - I'm just blindly following instructions at this point. I think the last time this happened was when I learned how to turn a heel of a sock, well over three years ago, and even then, I saw the reason for most of it shortly after. Still stumped here, but you know what? Rhodion is going to be beautiful (it's just is going to take three [very long] months).