The real question is, though, “why might you want to shoot me in the first place?”  Well… because I’m moving the blog again!  The grumbling may now commence…

Honestly, though, this should be the last time for a long time to come.  Why is that?  Because I’m moving the blog to my very own domain: www.habitualaddict.com.  I purchased the domain almost a year ago, along with some hosting space, with the intention of moving my blog there.  Sadly, I haven’t had the time or the courage to attempt it until now.  At least, I have worked up the the courage…  if not the time.

So, head on over to the new home of marginalia and check out the new digs.  It is still a work in progress but let me know what you think.  Also, don’t forget to point your feed readers to the new feed if you want to keep up to date!  As of this post, I will not be updating this site anymore.

I’m excited!!!  Are you?

I think that it just might be!

I have been drooling over Fair Island pieces since I started knitting but have been too intimidated to try it.  That is, until now…

I decided to just jump right in, full-speed ahead, with the Endpaper Mitts.  I’m trying to learn stranded knitting using both hands to tension the yarn and, as expected, I’m having some tension issues.  Hopefully some of these issues will work themselves out in blocking.  I also made an itsy-bitsy slip-up in the pattern a number of rows back and refuse to go back to correct it.  (If you don’t tell anyone, neither will I.  It’ll be our little secret…)  All-in-all, though, I’m in love!!

Speaking of love, I’m also in love with another project I have undertaken this week:

I’ve finally convinced Andrew that some dedicated crafting space is needed and, much to his chagrin, have spent the past week working on getting it up and running.

It’s not complete yet but it is getting closer.  I love these shelves over my workspace:

And that there are cubbies for yarn (and other crafting goodness but mostly yarn!!):

I will share some more photos with you once the space is complete, or at least as complete as it’s going to get until the weather is suitable for repainting…

I have quite a busy weekend ahead of me but hopefully I’ll have time to stop in and say ‘hi’ sometime.

Sadly, that has meant no blogging.  Really, it has meant very little time with the internets in general.  I have so much blog reading to catch up on!!

Anyway, the blog silence is about to be broken!  I have things I want to share with you all.  Also, the blog says it has felt very neglected these past few months (that’s right, I said ‘months’).

So, it’ll probably take me a day or two to get up and running semi-normally again and perform some housekeeping (aka sorting through spam comments and updating blogrolls and things of that nature…).  In the meantime, I present to you for your enjoyment this photo I took with the Hipstamatic app on my new iPhone 4:

I’m kind of in love with this app… oh, and the phone, too!

I have been thinking how awesome it would be to start and finish my Wave Blanket from my 10 in 2010 list during the Winter Olympics.  While considering challenging myself to this venture, I have been flip-flopping back and forth between “I can do this!!” and “What the $%*# am I thinking?!”.

Well, I have been practically snowed in for the past two days, which has meant not having to go to work (woohoo!), and have been without internet and cable since Wednesday afternoon, which has meant quite a bit of knitting time (double woohoo!).  I finished not only one hat for my new nephew but two!!  Both patterns are from the Itty-Bitty Hats book I spoke about in my last post.  Once I get some decent photographs, hopefully on the head of the intended recipient, I will share those with you.

Anyway, the point is that all this knitting got me a little excited, knitting crazed if you will.  I was so excited, in fact, that I just could not wait to cast on for my Wave Blanket…

Consequently, the point of whether to attempt the project for the Ravelympics is now a moot point.

I’d still like to try to finish it before the Olympic flame is extinguished on February 28th, but, rather than becoming an official entry in the competition, my blanket will now simply be my constant companion during my obsessive watching of the Olympic coverage.  It is, I have to say, a great project for knitting while watching the Olympics – simple enough to allow me to look up during the short action sequences but interesting enough to look at during the endless boring commentary…

I cannot wait to settle into some knitting during the coverage of the opening ceremonies this evening!!  Perhaps with some hot tea and cookies…  Squee.

It’s the Candy Cane hat from Itty-Bitty Hats by Susan B. Anderson, a book I received this holiday season from Andrew’s parents.  The book is chock-full of wonderfully adorable baby hats, which should come in handy in the coming years.  After all, I’m fairly certain that this won’t be the last time I become an uncle…  given that I have five younger sisters…

Well, as you can see from the previous photograph, I decided not to stick with the pattern’s namesake red and white stripes and instead choose to use a chestnut brown, spring green and teal color combination.  I love the way the colors look together and I’ve been thinking that I may just have to make myself a hat in the same colors.

Unfortunately, I foolishly decided that this project might be a good time to try out a jogless stripe technique.  Why?  I don’t know.  But I do know that I was so very wrong:

The stripes would probably have looked better without it.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

Anyway, the best part of the project is that it is knitting up fast; so, I may just not show up empty-handed this weekend…  even if the hat ends up too big for the intended recipient…  it will fit eventually…  hopefully during some of the colder months of the year…

I want to document, as accurately as possible, the color and texture of the yarns in the stash so that I can shop the stash even when I’m not able to be in physical contact with it.  So as part of this endeavor, I have been taking a lot of photographs.  Many, many photographs…  In order to make the task  a little more fun, I’ve been playing around with lighting and angles.

While I think that I’m more than halfway through the photographing process, I am by no means near the end.  The project has taught me a few things so far, though:

1. I have a lot of yarn.
2. Indirect natural light is really good for photographs in general but sometimes distorts the colors of some yarns…
3. I have a lot of yarn.
4. It’s really hard to get the color of heathered yarn, especially in blue and green tones, right in photographs…
5. I have a lot of yarn.
6. Attempting to photograph black (or even dark grey) yarn against a black backdrop is not really the best course of action…
7. Oh, did I mention that I have lot of yarn?

Overall, I have been very pleased with the results of my photo shoots and I thought I would share with you all some of my favorite photographs so far.

First up some simple Knit Picks Palette in Ash:

The photograph reminds me of stacked stones.  I think that this yarn is destined to become my pair of Earl Grey socks from my 10 in 2010 list.

Next, something with a bit more color:

Two skeins of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in the Edgewater colorway.  I love the way the colors turned out in this one; although, I would have appreciated slightly less intense highlights…

Brooks Farm Duo:

I love the way these skeins pop off the background.  I purchased this yarn on my first trip to Rhinebeck.  I love it so much that I haven’t been able to bring myself to make anything from it.  That’s a silly notion, isn’t it?

Well, its the same notion I have about this yarn:

Fingering Superwash Merino Semi-solid in a colorway called Meadow Grass.  Also from my first trip to Rhinebeck but, this time, received as a present from Andrew.  It was hard to get the color correct in this photograph but I think that I did a reasonably good job.  I absolutely love the color.

Now, some yarn I picked up during my last trip to Japan:

I had to include this here because I really love the lighting in this photograph.  This is some very thin pima cotton from Avril, an awesomely cool LYS  in Tokyo.  I think that it is really intended for weaving but, since I don’t currently weave (although I’d really like to!!), I’ll probably use it to make something lacy…

And finally, a little red:

Little Traveller from The Sanguine Gryphon in the Rojas colorway.  I think the photograph makes it seem a little ethereal…

Well, I think that’s all for now.  I hope you enjoyed the photographs.

Now I’m off to daydream about being snowed in with my knitting and an endless supply of tea and baked goods this weekend…

Yarn: Lion Brand :: Lion Wool Solid [Dark Teal (178)]; Lion Brand :: Lion Wool Solid [Lemongrass (132)]
Hook: Susan Bates Silvalume Aluminum Crochet Hook :: US G/4.0mm
Start: December 2009
Finish: December 2009
Made for: Andrew
Pattern: Thinker :: Crobots: 20 Amigurumi Robots to Make [Nelly Pailloux]

Tomo is the second of the pair of robots I made for Andrew as holiday presents this past year.  His name is Japanese for wisdom or knowledge and, true to his name, he has an insatiable thirst for knowledge.  Much to Andrew’s chagrin, he is currently into reading about knitting and crochet…

I made some changes to the pattern when making Tomo, mostly to fit within the confines of what materials I already had on hand.  Most notably, I changed the color scheme from white with burgundy accents to blue with green and white accents.

Another noticeable change are the buttons used on his Leia-esque buns.  In the original pattern, these are sequins with little seed beads.  I didn’t have any sequins on hand and felt, since I don’t use them on a regular basis, it would be a waste to purchase an entire bag.  I admit that I momentarily had visions of walking around the women’s department of my local Target scouring the floor for some sequins that may have detached themselves from their original garments, but then thought about how suspicious this might look, not being a toddler who might naturally take to this sort of activity…  So, I dug through my box of buttons and came across these teeny tiny buttons that I think work rather well.  I really enjoy the little bit of extra color they add.

I think that my favorite part, however, are Tomo’s fingers, which you can see a bit better in this photo:

They make him look very serene and content…  like he’s had a good meal and is now ready to settle down and dig into some intense reading…

1. Full Steam :: David Gray [Draw The Line]
2. Engines :: Snow Patrol [A Hundred Million Suns]
3. Hard On You :: Rob Thomas [Cradlesong]
4. Love Is The End :: Keane [Perfect Symmetry]
5. Careless :: Amos Lee [Supply And Demand]
6. Summer At Eureka :: Pete Murray [Summer At Eureka]
7. Vegetable Car :: Joshua Radin [Simple Times]
8. Sail Away :: David Gray [White Ladder]
9. Babys :: Bon Iver [Blood Bank]
10. Tapes :: Alanis Morissette [Flavors Of Entanglement]

Confused? Don’t be; check out what this post is about by reading up on the concept behind Soundtrack for Sunday.

Don’t own these songs but want to? Purchase the iMix from iTunes…

Yarn: Debbie Bliss :: Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran [360007] : 26.9yds/24.6m
Hook: Susan Bates Silvalume Aluminum Crochet Hook :: US G/4.0mm
Start: December 2009
Finish: December 2009
Made for: Andrew
Pattern: Zombiebot :: Crobots: 20 Amigurumi Robots to Make [Nelly Pailloux]

So, first up is *squish*, so named for the sound that his favorite meal, brains, make whilst being munched.

A while back, Andrew came across and fell in love with the patterns in Crobots.  He practically begged me to make him some of them and so I relented this season and made two.  *squish* was the first.

This pattern was easy to follow and very quick to crochet.  The finishing, on the other hand, took quite a bit of time to complete.  Sewing details onto a three dimensional object is harder than it originally sounds, a lesson that I clearly forgot after making Euan.  It was especially difficult to make the springs twist the way I wanted them to and attach to the locations I envisioned.  The one on his face was especially tricky:

All that aside, though, I love the finished product!!

*squish* is adorable, even if he has a predilection for devouring brains and can’t quite stand up straight, which admittedly makes it a bit easier to escape when he’s on the hunt for some tasty morsels…

I am officially smitten with the Electric Sheep podcast!!

A new obsession has been born…