The impetus behind item #19 – knitting a pair of socks – was to force myself to do something I hadn’t done before in knitting, something that I found daunting, and something that I’d be really happy I knew how to do once I finished and would want to do again. Socks fit that bill. But you know what else fits that bill? LACE!

As Christmas approached, I realized that I wanted to make something for my niece, Celeste. I’d received a skein of Malabrigo Silky Merino in a swap earlier in the year, with the colorway name of “Celeste”, which meant that of course it was destined to be made into something for her. She’s a teenager, so I knew a hat was probably not going to work (what teenager do you know who would willingly wear a handknit hat and risk crushing her hair?) So I poked around on Ravelry and found a really awesome scarf that several people had made from this yarn and decided to give it a whirl.

Finished scarf

Getting ready to block

As you might imagine, I’m really excited about how it turned out! The yarn was a dream to work with. The new knitting needles I was using were wonderful (the interchangeable set from WEBS). The pattern was relatively simple to learn – only 5 rows. I did most of the stitches one might need in any other lace pattern. I threw in lifelines here and there (thank goodness, because I had one major goof during a weird power outage that I had to recover from). I blocked the daylights out of the thing – it grew from 37″ to 50″ after blocking! And you know what? It was so fun to do that I turned around and made another one for my mom out of a completely different kind of yarn. I haven’t mailed that to her quite yet (sorry Mom!) but I’m equally happy with how that one turned out.

The day after I got the book at the library, I had a pretty bad day (migraine – ugh!) and slept all afternoon. That meant that by midnight, I was wide awake and not ready for sleep. I picked up How to Knit a Love Song, started reading, finally got tired, and didn’t put the book down until 3 hours later when I was done with it. It was pretty great, not what I was expecting from a romance novel. Thanks Rachel!

These gloves are going to be hockey-themed, thanks to Brynna, who recently opened a shop on Etsy called Draygone Yarnes. I bought a skein of fingering-weight wool in the “Boston Bruins” colorway.

I’ve never knit with such fine yarn, but now have about 2 inches of ribbing done on the first glove. So far, so good!

Stay tuned for more progress photos next week.