Knitting again

I'm back! My back and arm aren't totally back to normal yet, but they're a lot better, so I've started knitting again. I've made some progress on my slightly altered Endpaper Mitts. Here's what they look like now:
I like it, although not surprisingly, I prefer the original pattern to mine. In an unusual fit of doing more than one thing at a time, I've also started the Cabled Newsboy Cap from Stitch n' Bitch Nation. It's a nice, goofy little project that uses worsted weight yarn and that I can probably finish in a week. It's fun to knit with thick yarn every once in a while, because your stuff knits up so fast.

But that's not what I'm going to blog about. I'm blogging about my very exciting trip to Jo-Ann's today. Ok, not that exciting, but I don't have a lot to blog about.

The first very exciting thing that I got at Jo-Ann's was these very exciting puzzle blocks. I think I've blogged about my blocking woes in the past. Basically, I only have two appropriate surfaces for blocking in my apartment: my bed and my couch. Sadly, I use both my bed and my couch on a regular basis, which meant that in order to block things I had to curtail basic daily activities in pretty disruptive ways. Well, that problem has been solved! You know the Knitter's Blocks, which cost $50? Or this knock off from KnitPicks, which costs $20 and is sold out until the end of June anyway? Well, Jo-Ann's had these guys on sale for $8:


Yay! Blocking problems solved.

My other Jo-Ann's purchase was their new Deborah Norville sock yarn.


This stuff is clearly meant to compete with Paton's Kroy. The price is right: it's $3.29 per ball, and I think you'd need two balls to do a pair of socks. I'm not crazy about the colors, though. These were the two best ones, and they're not colors I'd generally buy. I'm going to play around with it a little bit after I finish my current projects, though, because I'm curious to see how it knits up.