Recently in Fluffy Oversized Category

The green sweater. I frogged. I wasn't feelin' the love for it, you know. Made me look like a long-armed fuzzy bear. I'm a bit on the skinny side, so if a sweater can make me look like a long-armed fuzzy bear, it must be bad. It was. Bye-bye, green sweater. Hello, cute little fuzzy green yarn cakes. I'm on a pattern search now.

The lace stole. I frogged. I have to thank Lyn, who frogged her pink Criss Cross (I think it's from Vogue Knitting). These two projects have been gathering dust in the closet and everytime I opened it to take out needles, or yarn, or my knitting bag, I got a twinge of pain. Agh, the pain. So, I frogged. Also, do you know that frogging mohair sucks? It wasn't enough that I frogged the fluffy green sweater (mohair and wool), I had to frog the lace stole (mohair and silk) right after. I never got a good rhythm with the pattern, which was turning out to be incredibly boring. It was all good, though, the Argentinian wine helped.

I joined the Summer of Lace knitalong. I gotta do this KSH shawl for my grammy (I'm thinking the good old standby Feather and Fan) and I gotta do Kiri as well. We shall see...

A Post-it mosaic of Elvis. He he. Nothing to get the creative juices flowing! (Also good for team bonding, etc. etc.)

This reminds me of the time we did a treasure hunt at work. One of the IT guys had a pair of magnets that made a clicking sound when he tossed them in the air (something about the poles attracting and repelling each other). He did it far too often and incurred the wrath of one of the designers. The IT guy made the mistake of leaving the magnets one day so we "kidnapped" one of them, made a ransom note (photo of blindfolded magnet included), and left it on the foosball table demanding cold hard cash for its safe return. When he didn't pay up, he was sent on a treasure hunt that took him to the very bottom of the parking structure to the CEO's conference room to the outdoor landscaping. It took the better part of an hour and 15 clues, and it was sooo much fun to watch the entire IT department running around! I wish we could come up with something like that again.

Cute Link Alert! Witold Reidel's The Bear travel photo series.

Pattern: Fluffy Sweater from Sarah Dallas' Vintage Knits
Yarn: Rowan Kid Soft in Blithe, per pattern
Needles: US 6 and 8

I made a few mistakes modifications: I knit 2x2 ribbing instead of mini-cables, this major error coming to light only as I finished the 2nd sleeve. I got over it easily. I also knit an extra 1.5" of sleeve but it turns out that the pattern was spot on. See, in the book the picture is kind of blurry toward the bottom, but the model's hands are engulfed by sweater. That should've given me the clue. Anyway, I'll do some creative cutting around the wrist area and make it wearable before I post any more pictures. The sweater falls at the hip, which is fine with me, but the body is wide, despite my having knit the smallest size. Hm. Either my gauge got looser as I knit or I lost weight (yeah, right). Lastly, I seamed the sweater with the same yarn. Emily seamed hers with a matching yarn, and I had thought I'd do it with embroidery floss, but then what if I washed the thing and the floss shrank or got loose? So yes, I seamed with mohair and boy was it fun. All in all, a good learning experience for a first sweater!

Reading: A friend lent me his copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke; it took him 2 months and I expect I'll do the same. I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, which I thought was a *great* book (but they killed Oyster, Lauren!). BF forgot my reading list when he went to the library so for this week I'll be reading teen lit: How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff.

Well, almost. The sleeves were knit last week. I knit my first sleeve 2 inches (5 cm) too long, so I had to frog those 8 rows before the shoulder shaping. Frog. Mohair. *sigh* You can imagine my pain. I've knitted the neckband into place and seamed the shoulders with the yarn. All that's left is to attach the sleeves and sew up the sleeve and side seams. That will have to wait until Monday when I have an opportunity to drop by a craft store for color-matched embroidery floss, which Emily recommends. No kidding. When I had to unravel one of my seams I almost tossed the pile in frustration. I had to take a break from the green fluffmonster tonight; Stitches West or no, I have to have some time to do other things!

Like, catching up on blogreading! Via Kottke: Getting a cell phone for your dog. Yes, your dog. Via Flickr: Turn any iPod into an iPod Shuffle. And via Fussy: The Bible illustrated in Legos. Enjoy!

Reading: The Secret History by Donna Tartt, recommended by Shobhana. It's been compared to A Separate Peace by John Knowles, so it should be interesting. I'm at the point where Richard finds out that Bunny likes to take people out to eat on their tab. I finished A Deepness In The Sky by Vernor Vinge. I have to say that the sequel was not as ...interesting... as the original. I also finished Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. It was slated to be a later read, but it was due at the library. Interesting story, lots of intertwining storylines. Thanks everyone for your recommendations!