Here's the Noro Kureyon Logcabin. This is nearly 3 skeins complete. (Someone asked in the comments... the color is the impressive #40. I wish they had names). I really like knitting with Kureyon, but as the temperatures come up, I'm going to have to find my metal size 8s because wool + bamboo + heat/humidity = blah knitting. I love watching the colors change and 18 rows of garter stitch are a snap (although starting to take much longer as the stripes grow). Unfortunately, I don't have nearly enough yarn to make an adult-sized blanket. And a Noro Kureyon baby blanket... no way! I doubt any new parent would be thankful for a hand-wash carefully blanket, and I can't stand the thought of little baby grossness all over the pretty wool. There are several possible solutions to this dilemma. 1) As Kevin suggested, it could be a wall hanging. 2) It could be a small lap blanket for cool days. 3) I could buy more Noro. Considering this Noro was stash Noro (lived in the car for 8 months), it doesn't really have a cost anymore, so the only "cost" to the blanket would be new Noro. And with a blanket, I'm not concerned with dye lots. 4) Buy a similar wool yarn in black. I was thinking colorful Noro middle, black around the edge to make it bigger. Kevin suggested reserving 2 skeins of Noro to use as a border outside of the black. I'm not sure which choice I'm going to go with, but I figure it wouldn't hurt to knit all but two skeins and hunt around at MDS&W for an appropriate addition. Oh, and just because I'm lazy and hate (HATE) turning my work, I've figured out how to purl backwards.

And I realized that you hadn't seen this guy in a while. Clearly he is much bigger than last time I showed him, when he was merely a toe. I've been dragging a bit on these socks because 1) it will be too warm for them soon and 2) the size 0s are killing my left middle finger. For some reason when I knit on tiny needles (and I don't do this with needles bigger than 3), I hold the left needle in an impenetrable death grip, which means that my left middle finger in the region between the two knuckles gets red and irritated and rubbed and dented. I did however find a magical solution the other day while waiting in the grocery store. Kevin went to find his favorite coffee beans, so I parked the cart next to the "foot care" aisle. I was looking at the various foot-related products and saw the answer to my problem. Moleskin padding. Moleskin is what you cut pieces off of and put on your foot in order to keep your shoes from giving you blisters. I thought "why can't this work on my finger" and into the cart it went. And now I can happily knit on the socks for hours (well, at least until my other hand gets cramps!).

Remember the "I hate my neighbors" post from two weeks ago. Well, here's a real life picture of the situation. (Nothing has changed otherwise). Their garage is the white one and our place is the tan one. At least they haven't added to the crap pile in a while.

Lastly for today, reasons why the knitting funk is gone:

• Can't put down the logcabin blanket.


• When I do put down logcabin, I pick up the squares for the squares blanket. I only have 6 more to knit. I actually knit one complete square during last night's Mets game.


• Very strong desire to purchase some of this. Potentially for dad's sweater.


• And everything from here. Don't click there unless you have a lot of will power. It is a British site, but they have free international shipping for orders over £40. I've tried to tell myself to save for Maryland, but I don't know if I'll make it.