little messes

today jeff found a new friend. he’s a shy little guy. a real slow mover and he fits on the tip of a finger. the garden is in full bloom so it’s no surprise to find this little guy. i hope we get to see more of him.

in other news of tiny creatures, the wiggler’s and i are growing pretty big these days. i’m expanding faster than i can find long shirts and stretchy skirts and my train rides are filled with silent hurried fingers on my needles.

i’ve gotten one sweater nearly done (ran out of yarn before i got to the sleeves) and a second sweater started, well so far just the hood. just waiting on another round of skeins to arrive to really get down to business. the house is quietly shifting it’s focus too. we’re having a bunch of work completed on the hallway upstairs and the back roof. a room that i’m too shy to yet call a nursery has been painted and FLOR laid in place. we’re just settling i guess. and hoping the next few months don’t pass too quickly so we run out of time and focus to get stuff done. i guess i should add agility and energy to that list too. i’m just trying to be quieter. which if you knew me you’d know what quite a task. but there it is. the quiet before what i hope to be a happy storm of new voices filling the halls of our home.

i’m not sure if my idea for that post title refers to the knitting projects i have in my head or upcoming posts, but either way i’ll do my best to work on both since i’ve been more of a slacker than usual with anything creatively minded. ok, not really, but i’ve been really bad about actually documenting any of it.

so where to start, well let’s just say it’s been a busy year so far here at chez mess. we geared up our energy reserves over the winter and put them to good use by finishing some long awaited refreshes of the house. i’ll have to post pictures soon since that documenting part has been slow going, but it shall be stated that we have finished work on (another reworking of) the garden, our 2nd bedroom, and have slowly begun tearing off part of the roof of our mud room to fix a leak that’s been begging for help for over a year. we still have to finish the patio outside and the hallway upstairs is the biggest project left in the house, well with the exception of my studio that needs new walls and insulation but that one’s too big to actual pretend it will happen anytime soon so eh…

what’s with all the renovation steam you ask? well, we’ll be enlarging the household soon and we’re trying to ready ourselves before we have no time at all.

yup, that’s right, it’s super weird for me to say out loud still but we’re expecting. and here’s the kicker, there’s two of ‘em coming. yipe! twins on the way, sometime in late september/early october. these little rainbow hats are the first of many projects i’ve been mulling in my head and after a recent score of *far too many* jamie harmon skeins of yarn from the maryland sheep and wool festival, my hands they are a twittering with woolens.

next up, knit stuffed beings of some sort and perhaps a few sweaters. oh lordie, we’re in for a ride huh?!

hopefully Laurie will be opening up her goodies soon! i can’t wait and hope she likes all the goodies headed her way for back-tack 4.

this swap has been so fun to do. i love the idea of combining three different types of gifts. and the option to include food is always ok by me.

This year’s theme: Gold, Frankincense, & Myrrh

The first item is something that sparkles [the Gold part] – and while these don’t literally sparkle, i thought the fabric i used for these pleated placemats made me feel all sparkly inside.

The second item is something which has some sort of sensory aspect to it [the Frankincense part] – and how could i not share some of our homemade peach jam from our peach tree.

The third item is a small gift for your partner for Christmas [the Myrrh part] – and i figured being in South Dakota, Laurie might need help keeping her hands toasty all winter long, and what better way then with Eunny Jang’s Endpaper Mitts. These I knit up with aqua and gray yarns from Frog Tree. My all-time favorite alpaca yarn. It’s crazy soft and wears so well for years.

so that’s it, it was such a great creative jolt that i’ve been looking forward to for so long. i just hope my partner likes it as much as i do!

so as i mentioned before i’ve been working on the endpaper mitts these last few weeks and well, let’s just say it’s been a rocky relationship. the more i worked on the first one, the more i hated little things about the pattern. first off, the “seam” stiches, i just don’t like the way the look. the outside seam is ok, but the inside seam starts to look all wonky when you begin to add stitches around the thumb. i can only speak for my pair, and i’ll admit i’m no star knitter but the seam made it look like i’d jacked up all the stitches around the base of my thumb. yuck. also, the seams break up that gorgeous pattern that you put so much work into making. being that i’m a bit of a perfectionist (aka obsessive-compulsive) i spent nearly every moment i was wearing said mitt, lining up the seams properly so that i could enjoy the warmth of them. ugh.

so just as i finished the first mitt. i decided this wasn’t going to work for me, so i started over. on my new mitt, which i finished last night, gone are the seam stitches and the pattern just runs it’s course over the whole of the mitt. so voila. i’m as happy as my right hand is warm… two down, one to go. and until the next one is complete, i still have the wonky one to keep me warm. albeit constantly adjusting.

jeff just sent me this hilarious photo of henry. he must of gotten inspired by all the knitting around these parts and decided to make a go of it for himself.

sadly for him, knitting + pups = naptime.

what does it mean when you see michael jackson’s white glove in your sweet potato curry?

in other non “king of pop” fare, i’ll have you know i have become obsessed, i’ll say it again nice and slow for effect, o b s e s s e d with these endpaper mitts. for years i have run screaming from any knitting pattern that dares to make mention of a size 0 needle, i mean, good gravy, those would take miniature hands to use properly. but eunny jang’s mitt won me over, and after i saw them again over at knotty bits something in me snapped and i had to start working on them immediately.

and i have to say, i love it. they are the perfect project for a commuter. i jump on the train and get so involved that the train-ride seems so quick and i’m super awake…(i do however have a hard time leaving the work in my bag all day while at work, ugh… methinks i here the needles crying for me to pick them up!) oh yeah, that’s right, we’re back at obsessed huh.