Reading - The Devil wears Prada

The Devil wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger



Charmingly unfashionable Andrea Sachs, upon graduating from Brown, finds herself in this precarious position: she's an assistant to the most revered-and hated-woman in fashion, Runway editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly. The self-described "biggest fashion loser to ever hit the scene," Andy takes the job hoping to land at the New Yorker after a year. As the "lowest-paid-but-most-highly-perked assistant in the free world," she soon learns her Nine West loafers won't cut it-everyone wears Jimmy Choos or Manolos-and that the four years she spent memorizing poems and examining prose will not help her in her new role of "finding, fetching, or faxing" whatever the diabolical Miranda wants, immediately. Life is pretty grim for Andy, but Weisberger, whose stint as Anna Wintour's assistant at Vogue couldn't possibly have anything to do with the novel's inspiration, infuses the narrative with plenty of dead-on assessments of fashion's frivolity and realistic, funny portrayals of life as a peon. Andy's mishaps will undoubtedly elicit laughter from readers, and the story's even got a virtuous little moral at its heart.

Reading - Memories of My Melanchoy Whores

Memories of My Melanchoy Whores by
Memories of My Melanchoy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez



"The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." So begins Memories of My Melancholy Whores.

The girl is 14 and works all day in a factory attaching buttons in order to provide for her family. Rosa gives her a combination of bromide and valerian to drink to calm her nerves, and when the prospective lover arrives, she is sound asleep. Now the story really begins. The nonagenarian is not a sex-starved adventurer; he is a tender voyeur. Throughout his 90th year, he continues to meet the girl and watch her sleep. He says, "This was something new for me. I was ignorant of the arts of seduction and had always chosen my brides for a night at random, more for their price than their charms, and we had made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and always in the dark, so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were ... That night I discovered the improbably pleasure of contemplating the body of a sleeping woman without the urgencies of desire or the obstacles of modesty."

Reading - For One More Day

For One More Day by Mitch Albom



Charlie's been drunk so often and disappointed his daughter so many times that she doesn't invite him to her wedding. He even fails at his suicide. Or does he? When his deceased mother returns to love him unconditionally for one more day, he's not quite sure what's going on. The author reads his book with a deep, resonant voice that matches the sentimental sermonizing in the story. Albom's narration singsongs as Charlie reflects on his mother's past support, his own failings, and the events of a confusing present in which he relishes his mother's care and sees his own life clearly for the first time.

A Crocheted Christmas Tree

Wish you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Reading - Selling the Wheel

Selling the Wheel by Jeff Cox and Howard Stevens



A fledgling old-time entrepreneur named Max who invents the wheel but can't get anybody to buy one. With marketing assistance from his wife ("In the olden days," Cox explains, "women almost always did the marketing"), and guidance from a cave-dwelling wise man, Max ultimately succeeds with help from four distinctly different types of salespeople, dubbed Closer, Wizard, Builder, and Captain. While this may sound silly when taken out of context, the story is entertaining and, more important, filled with sound tips that could help sales professionals and their managers deal with varying evolutionary phases of any product or service.

A bestselling business books that employ engaging fictional tales to advance a slew of practical suggestions.

Reading - Shopaholic & Baby

Shopaholic & Baby by sophie Kinsella



Kinsella's follow-up to Shopaholic & Sister(2004) finds the irrepressible Becky expecting her first child with her dashing husband, Luke. Naturally, there's shopping to be done: Becky is determined that her child will be as stylish as a baby can be. That includes having the best obstetrician, so when Becky learns about Venetia Carter, who caters to models and movie stars, she's determined to get herself into Venetia's practice. She succeeds, only to discover to her dismay that the stunning Venetia dated Luke in college and may still be carrying a torch for him. Becky will go to any length to keep her husband, whether it be intercepting text messages from Venetia in Latin or hiring a private detective to trail Luke and learn whether or not he has actually been unfaithful to her, rendering marriage over before it has really begun.

A-line Jacket Modelling

Dadadada.... It is finally finished. I like the colour very much that it has a strong winter feel.




Spec :
pattern : just take Kim Hargreaves's Wispy as reference and make some changes on it
yarn : Mondial's Delicata Baby (Italy)
material : 100% pure new wool merino
usage : 8 x 50g (each at 215m length)
needle : 3.5mm






I must tell you, this kind of a-line jacket is very popular at this winter at HK. When my friend first look at this, she said to me : " I want one, please knit one for me." Then we right away rush to my favour yarn shop to pick up yarn and discuss the design at a food court. This is how this jacket is produced.

I used 3.5mm needles, which is larger than the yarn label (suggested 2.5-3mm needle), to knit the seed stitches for my friend likes the soft feeling. I have first tried the 3mm needle, the outcome is a little bit tight between seed stitches that the back piece is ripped and reknit.

For the collar and the front border, reverse stockinette stitch is knitted. But it seems that there is no big difference from the body's seed stitches.

For the buttonhole, I take the "6 stitch One-Row Buttonhole" method as printed in IKwinter2006. This is my first time to make such a large buttonhole for an oversized button (the diameter is about 1-1.25 inch) is used.

All progress of this jacket, please tick here.

Reading - The Alchemist

I haven't posted any in my blog for I am fully stained in my friend's A-line jacket. The time is really flied away so quick that when a few rows are knitted per day. May be I am a slow knitter. The jacket is finally finished. But the photos, are in my friend's camera, will be posted when I collect them.

Since I am busy in knitting, I still read.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho


The charming tale of Santiago, a shepherd boy, who dreams of seeing the world, is compelling in its own right, but gains resonance through the many lessons Santiago learns during his adventures. So he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream. He journeys from Spain to Morocco in search of worldly success, and eventually to Egypt, where a fateful encounter with an alchemist brings him at last to self-understanding and spiritual enlightenment.

Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.

The story has the comic charm, dramatic tension and psychological intensity of a fairy tale, but it's full of specific wisdom as well, about becoming self-empowered, overcoming depression, and believing in dreams.