Look at this! It's a photo of the front of my snappy new sweater vest. I made some serious progress last night--partially because this is knitted on size 13 needles but also because there was something entertaining on tv for once! That's right, a SMAP TV special that was all in english! It was highly entertaining, not for the reasons it was supposed to be, but simply because it was weird. So I watched and knitted away, and before I knew it I was almost done with the front of my vest. When I'm done, I think this will give me the energy to take on that triangular scarf with its complicated yarn over pattern. I'm also determined to start on a blanket of some sort so that I can knit something mindless and practical.

On a different note, I have been thinking a lot about Noro now that I'm in Japan, especially since I can't seem to find it anywhere. Does anyone know what the deal is with that? I am in a relatively unimportant town, so it could just be that I am going to have to go to Nagoya to find it. But if I'm going to Nagoya, maybe I'll just look up the factory...