Baby Blocks blanket

This is the blanket I'm working on. Even though I have no time to knit.

It all started with those Mason-Dixon gals and the button hole purse. Yes, I know this isn't a button hole purse. That's because this is cotton, and even I know that you can't felt cotton. (you can't, can you?) This cotton has been living in my closet for about 7 years. Some of it is a front and 2 sleeves of a sweater I can't imagine anyone wearing. But it's lovely 8-ply 100% cotton from Knitwear Architects in Vancouver (who afaik have gone out of business, perhaps because their customers collapsed from the exhaustion of wearing their very heavy cotton sweaters; but you still can get yarn like this here). In real life it's a pretty nice shade of sage. Can't believe I ever thought I'd actually wear it though....

I have been meaning to revamp it into a lap blanket for some time now & you know how it goes, you have no time, you're homeschooling 2 kids, you have 2 website design and maintenance contracts, a part-time job at a college, and several very unfinished novels on the go (as in writing them, not reading), and that's, like, the perfect time to start knitting again. Especially a really large project like a lap blanket which is about 41 inches wide and will be as long as it takes to use up the yarn.

At some point in time I'll have to start ripping the sleeves and front to liberate more yarn. I can't decide what to do with it. Should I wash it? It weights a ton when it's wet & takes forever to dry lying flat. Of course summer is around the corner so what better time to have yarn drying for a week on the balcony. Someone suggested winding it in a skein on a frame and then steaming in lightly to loosen the kinks. Ideas, suggestions are welcome.

Oh, and the pattern is Ann Norling's Baby Blocks, published in Debbie Macomber's novel The Shop on Blossom Street.

I do find knitting relaxing and it lets me think. I think it might help with my plotting. Yeah, well, it might.

There's only 1 knitting problem on the horizon. I've been surfing some knitting blogs, reading some funny stuff, and I'm noticing a scary trend: the weird lacy dental floss triangle shawl thing. It's this small thingy, that some people appear to be wearing over a plain cotton knit top, and which just kind of looks like some yarn climbed on you and is doing an imitation of seaweed. Yikes. What is that? I hope this fashion dies out fast.

Socks, now. There's a lot of interest in socks lately in the knitting world. That I could get into.