Bags and blankets, and another project bound off

Ever since I completed my Oregon Tote, it has bothered me that the pink stripe was wider on the inside than it was on the outside. Yesterday, in a stroke of genius, I realized I just needed to turn the bag inside out and it would stop bothering me so much. (I know, I'm a little slow). So I've posted a picture of the bag now, and you can all see why my friend Carla calls it Grover.

Speaking of Carla, she was over last night and asked if I would teach her to knit. Yay! Another convert. I tried to convince her to come to knitting, but she wants a private lesson first. I'll have her make a square for the Pappas school blankets and see if she likes it.

I decided to start the hat for baby Vincent yesterday, and I went to get the size 7 needles out of my Denise Knits Interchangeable Kit. They weren't there. Neither were the 11s, 13s, or 15s. Could I really have that many projects on needles? Indeed I can, and I do.

The 7s were being held up by the J baby blanket for Jack, the unborn child who wakes me up in the middle of the night doing his version of the samba. Production has been halted on this blanket for a variety of reasons. First, I was about to run out of yarn. Rowan All Seasons Cotton no less, and I didn't want to buy any more. Second, the J is not centered in the blanket unless I do buy more yarn and knit for another billion rows. Third, it is the most boring project I've ever knit in my life. The entire thing is in stockinette stitch – knit one side, purl one side – for ever and ever. I thought it would never end.

So I made an executive decision and just finished off the blanket with the J floating way up near the top. I looked at it this morning and I don't hate it as much as I did yesterday, so maybe I'll just weave in all those ends and leave it.

As for the hat, I started it but I am going to have to rip it out. I should never do something complicated after I've taken Benedryl.