Bargain Book Bonanza

But first, some thinly sliced cucumbers:


Ok, now that the pretty food moment is over, I found this book at B&N for $6.98 (all prices are in USD unless otherwise stated. Which isn't likely because I don't think I'll be going out of the country any time soon). It's from the blogger who does Yarnstorm. I did not know about Yarnstorm until I picked up her book. It's very very pretty, and calming at night as I read it. Plus, she's got some AWESOME projects - knitting, baking, sewing, and otherwise. (also, I saw this book on sale for $9.99 at Williams Sonoma, so if you're not near a B&N, a WS will do)



I found this book - also for $6.98 at B&N. Which rocks, because I've been really wanting a Built By Wendy book, and they're usually in the $25 to $30 range. And in that range I usually buy knitting books (with Borders Bucks and major coupons). It particularly rocks because this book is about sewing with stretchy fabrics and using a serger (which I have, and shamefully have never used, not once, since my awesome husband bought it for me for Christmas more than four years ago. Boy, do I suck sometimes.)


Anyway, the above book particularly rocks because I am lusting after this dress from the Garnet Hill catalog, and honestly haven't spent $48 on a piece of clothing in, oh, forever. (it was in 2008, and I used a $50 gift card to buy a pair of jeans from Banana Republic. Thank you Jen BuckDaniels!) And I can totally make this:


Today at Borders, I bought these books for $5.99 and $7.99 respectively. Happy for No Reason because, as I said in a comment on Perches blog today, the cover is yellow and it has the word Happy on it. And happy for no reason? That almost NEVER happens to me. (ok, it happened once when I was pregnant with Georgia. I was suddenly filled with a total sense of well being and happiness for about ten minutes. It was awesome.) It will be an interesting social experiment. On myself. Also, I'm a total sucker for self-help books:


And I got this one, because I've been wanting to try out a Nigella book, and I like the words "Feast" and "celebrate life." Also I'm a total sucker for cookbooks. In the interest of total disclosure, you could probably make that sentence more true by eliminating any qualifier around the word "book."


Plus, Nigella and I have similar coloring.

Anyway, the Villane is going well, although I discovered that I screwed up a wee bit. You know, it's probably good to do one of the following two things:

1. Read the pattern. I hear this is helpful. Oh, and then after you read it, check it again as you approach major completion points.
   
2. Listen to your husband (a non-knitter) when he says things like "Gee, that sleeve looks really short. [I show him the picture of the sweater on a model] Huh, maybe the model has really short arms. Look, the cuff is halfway down her hand in the photo. I think your sleeve is too short. No? It's not too short? You followed the pattern? Really? Ok. Well, you're the knitter."

Yeah. So it is today, a good four days after I "finished" the first sleeve that I actually, you know, read the directions and it said to do five repeats of charts B1 and B2 after the one repeat of chart A. I had remembered the instructions as "do five repeats total, including chart A."

oops. Yeah. So sleeve one is about five inches too short. Maybe less. It's too short, regardless. Also, I have really long arms.

Sleeve two needs 1.5 more repeats to be actually complete. And one more repeat for sleeve 1 to finish that one. Sigh.