Knitting Frenzy

My B-Side is still going well. I'm done with the body, and only have the sleeves left to do, and then the big collar thingy, and I'm all done! I'm Magic Looping the sleeves (is that a verb?) so I only have to stick them into the armholes at the end. I would just pick up sleeves around the armhole and knit them down, but I don't really know how to do all the fancy sleeve-top shaping to get that to work, and it's actually easier this way without having to deal with an entire sweater body flopping around. :)

I did end up making the sleeve holes larger than the pattern called for, however (using measurements from some other sweaters of mine), so I'll have to deal with that when I get to it. Because my gauge seems to be different in the round than when I knit flat, I finished up half a sleeve before I decided that it was just too tight (what is it with me and sleeves that are too tight???), so I frogged the whole thing and started over with sleeves that are a couple sizes larger. I have only gotten through the cuff of the first one so far, so I hope it works.

In more exciting news, I got the books I ordered from the Interweave hurt book sale! They came much faster than I was anticipating, and they're all in good shape, too! (Certainly no worse for wear than books that have been pawed over at a bookstore.) I'm super excited about No Sheep For You, because I could stand to learn more about non-animal fibers and how to work with them, and it has some cute patterns, too. Knitting Little Luxuries is a book I have browsed through before, but never liked enough to pay full price for. Knit So Fine and Wrap Style are both books that piqued my curiosity, but which I am sure I would never have purchased otherwise. But now I have 4 new books to add to my shelves and I'm very happy about that! :)

I'm also super excited about this new addition to our living room: a new armchair! The Brain and I have been married for over a year and a half now, and since we were both in our late 20s when we got married, we each already had an apartment full of furniture of our own. This is our first official furniture purchase together, and we both love it! It's SUPER soft, with just the right combination of squooshy and firm. It is wide enough to curl up on and read a book and just be super comfy. We both like it so much that last night we had to compromise over who got to sit in it!

In other news, there is a relatively new knitting group down here that is meeting up tonight. I'm going to try to head out and check it out, even though I'm not normally a group knitter, and my previous experience with a knitting group didn't go so well. Does anyone else have good/bad experiences with knitting groups? I've never really been a joiner, and one side of my brain keeps trying to talk me into going while the other side keeps giving me reasons not to. There is also some track racing going on at the velodrome that The Brain is going to, and I like watching those, too, so I'm up in the air about this. If I end up making it, I'll give a full report next time. ;-)