Gentleman's Fancy Socks finished

These are my finished socks. The yarn has been in my possession for ages and finally found socks to be in. Actually it was coincidence that the yarn and the pattern go together so well as I had completely forgotten how it would knit up. The socks turned out almost identical, much to my delight. I have AIMED for identical of course once I saw how great sock one looked, but as I had just started knitting with whatever yarnend there was, I am pleased how well I matched the place in the repeat for sock 2.

This is the beginning of my red sweater. Actually it is the third beginning of that sweater. First there was Mrs CB's Camp Jacket: much too busy yarn for the pattern (Chicknits). Then I cast on Park from NoroKnits: I liked the changes I had made, but decided I did not want a hoodie after all. So this is the third cast on and I am winging it with EZ. I thought I would make a Hybrid, but with the waist shaping I am not sure the saddle shoulders would look good. Any comments or ideas on this?

And then there is this. That is the view out of my office at work. Luckily neither the trains nor the buses are all that loud and at least it easily reachable by public transport (=knitting or reading time).

Looking for a book

I am looking for a book that I held in hand the other day and now of course can not remember the author or the title. It was about a family that for one year tried to go with all the RIGHT choices as far as environmental, social and ethical effects of their lives were concerned. Does anyone know the title of this?

Thanks in advance.

I really need to get a booklet and a pen for my purse to write these things down.

One year of blogging

I only realized today that I have been blogging for over a year already. Yeah me! I did not think I would stick with it when I started, but even with my usual changes of interest I am still blogging ones in a while about all sorts of things.

I had a goal list then, it might be a good idea to start that up again.

Share reading

Click on the title and you will end up at green man press' blog and a wonderful picture for fantasy loving readers.

Gentleman's Fancy Socks

I have finished the first of my blog reading socks this morning and have to say I like it a lot. I have cast on for sock 2 and it seems that I have managed to at least make them closely related, though so far I am only 7 rows in. I am happy with those and can imagine that I will do more with this pattern at another time. I still love my Thuja pattern even more, but this is great too.

I am thinking about casting on Eunny's Chucks Cable Socks. As a matter of fact I joined the KAL. But the cast on is 76st and I normally do about 56, so I need to read the whole pattern to see if I will decrease or if I need to switch to much smaller needles than my usual 2.5mm ones. I also need to decide what colors to use, I am thinking black and turquois.

Eragon - the film

You might remember that I read the book in a frenzy to have it finished before the movie started showing in Germany. I liked the book quite a bit, even with all the bad rep it got for being a rip off of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Dragonriders of Pern. After all how many original ideas do you get in romance for example? I'd rather read a well written retake than a bad original in this case. I am looking forward to reading Eldest as part of my chunkster challenge.

But the movie, oh boy, so bad. It is naturally a very shortened version of the book, but it was in some places hardly recognizable at all. Jeremy Irons was good and I liked the look of the guy who played Murtagh, but apart from that it was deciedely blah. MyGuy has only seen the movie and he thought it was more a fairy tale for kids than a decent fantasy for grown ups. So while the dragon animation is good for the most part, the movie fell flat of our expectations both for the reader and the non-reader. We spent a nice evening, but this is not going anywhere on our recommendation list.

Flush and away which we saw the week before however was funny and I am sure will end up in our DVD collection.

Lost and Finished

I lost my brown knitted hat last week when dozens of people behind me leaving the bus and walking to the train did not see it fit to mention that my backpack was open. When I noticed and turned around to go find my knitting some "kind" soul said "you lost something back there". I was ready to strangle the bitch and I fill the urge whenever I see her commuting on the same train with me every damn day.... Anyway, at that time I did not notice that I should have walked further back and retrieved my hat somewhere too. So I did what any sensible knitter does: I knit a new one. I had been itching to make an Odessa from Grumperia. It did turn out nice, though you can not see too much in the photo. I left the beads of and knit the YO through the back to prevent holes and am happy with the result.

Catch-22 done

I have finished the third book from my Winter Stack Challenge: Catch-22. This is a book that I meant to read for quite some time and I actually enjoyed most of it. I liked the catch that if you are asking not to fly you are sane and have to fly. The deaths were sometimes gruesome but made it all the more believeable that Yossarian would not want to fly.

I decided to read this book after reading Beginner's Luck where it is mentioned. I do this quite a bit, read a book that I came across in another one. Does anyone else do this?

Because both my other stack books are heavy, I have snuck in a small one, I got the new Daisy Dalrymple mystery Death of a Philanderer and am looking forward to see Daisy and gang at the seashore. This is a favorite series of mine.

Chunkster Challenge - my way

Since the rules for the challenge are incredibly flexible I have decided to read at least 6 books with more than 400 pages for the Chunkster Challenge, though not necessarily one each month as the classics take up January and February. As a matter of fact Moby Dick, Night&Day and For Whom The Bells Toll all qualify for chunksters in the editions that I have. But I am going to read 6 more of the following list:

Jonathan Stranger & Mr. Norell
Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Prince
Voyager (by Diana Gabaldon)
Fiery Cross (dito)
Eldest
The amazing Adventure of Kavalier & Clay
Winter in Madrid
Carter Beats the Devil
Emporer The Gates of Rome
Little, Big
The Salteron Triology (1 book for me)
Seven Pillars of Wisdom

I hope to get all of these done next year, but will settle for 6 till the end of June.

This was one I could not resist:

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Chunkster Challenge

As you can see from my side bar I plan on joining another challenge. It is fairly flexible, and I will have Moby Dick from the classics as one of my chunksters. I am thinking of adding one each months for the 6 months the challenge is on, but I have to have a look at my books first to see which ones are over 400 pages. I might smuggle Eldest in there as Eragon was 496 pages in my edition. But I have to have a look see.

Any other reading challenges out there? Do you challenge yourself? What sort of challenges do you put on yourselves?

Finished Objects

This is the first of the finished objects: yellow Opal socks in Twin Rib. Done! I have to admit that I just wanted to get the yarn out of my stash. I like yellow for socks, but I growing less and less fond of the pseudo fair isle self patterning yarns. I am not buying anymore of that, but I love stripes, tweeding and (almost) solids.

For some one who does not like the yarn I seem to have quite a few pairs. The orange ones are stockinett top down, the green ones are my only pair of toe ups as I need to learn a different bind off before attempting this again, the blue ones are 2 by 2 rib and the pink ones are my favorites: Conway from Nancy Bush. This pattern I will certainly do again.

The other Finished Object is Eragon which I finished with almost a week to go till the deadline of the movie start in Germany. I have picked up Catch 22 and hope to finish it this time as it is part of my Winter Stack challenge. I need to finish 3 books this months, so I can attempt the classic challenge as well as the tbr challenge in the new year. Pooh, that should reduce the piles at least a tiny bit.

TBR Challenge

And here the list for the tbr challenge:

Ann Granger - Mord ist aller Laster Anfang
Anne Chaplet - Caruso singt nicht mehr
Abigail Padgett - Blue
Anthony Doerr - Shell Collector
Alistair McLean - Bear Island
Andrea Camilleri - Die Form des Wassers
Antal Szerb - Reise im Mondlicht
Anju Bahri - Bahrisons Chronicle of a Bookshop
Aaron Elkins - Dark Place
Asne Seiershad - Bookseller in Kabul
Alan Hollinghurst - A Line of Beauty
Angie Sarge - Magyk

Classics Challenge

I have decided to accept the classics challenge. This should likely count to my TBR challenge as well, but let me try stretching myself and adding those on.

I chose the following:

Moby Dick
Walden
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Night & Day
Silas Marner

That is likely rather ambitious, but at least it should get me started.

Bits and pages

In addition to the seaming (see yesterdays post) I also did the heel on my yellow opal twin rib sock, that is sock #2. The knitting is past the gusset and I am looking forward to some stupid easy knitting till the toe is reached. As usual I could not quite remember how I had done the heel and I think I placed it slightly different, but that will not be noticable with the jaquard yarn and the rib pattern.

I also have switched books and started reading Eragon, because when we were in Casino Royal I noticed that the movie will be showing in mid December and I wanted to read it before that. So the challenge books went on hold and I started Eragon which actually was in my stacks too. I have joined www.bookswappers.de to try and curb my book buying. I also have books listed on amazon. Bookswappers will get "nice" books and amazon "get rid" books, though at the moment I have listed some of my star trek books in the swap rather than in the sell category.

On Saturday I was in Freiburg to visit a friend. We hit the bookstores and I bought some kid's books for christmas. Additionally some non-fiction for myself. We went to the christmas fair, ate mexican food, I got to meet the new love interest and we watched a DVD. Entirely enjoyable, apart from the fact that I missed MyGuy.

Lilac FO

I am sure you are wondering where this came from as you have never seen it as a WIP. That is because the knitting has been done ages ago and I only took the time to seam it up today. A couple of hours of skiing on TV gets all sorts of things done... I have tried it on, with some trepidation as I thought lilac fluffy would look horrible, and apart from the shoulders being a bit wide and therefore the sleeves hanging down a bit lower than I wanted them to it is fine. Picture of it on my as soon as I get a photographer around here... I still have some of this Lana Grossa Fumo left, but am not sure this should be a scarf or a hat. It seems slightly itchy and that makes it a no go for both of these left over users. Any ideas?