First, you should all know I fired my photo assistant. He decided on the spot he’d rather do modeling work. He refused to leave the shoot, and had to be ejected.

This is the resulting piece from the swatch I brought to Rhinebeck that got fondled by many of you knitters there.

These are the fronts. (Obviously) The first section is knit in this great cabley/eyelet-y stitch pattern, and then a few inches from beginning the armscyes, the fairisle part starts. I have to hand it to Jodi,this is a really well written pattern, and each of the two charts are very easy to memorize, and I’m loving knitting with Whiskey.
You can find the pattern here.

Did I mention the gauge is 7 st/ in on US 4′s? Which equals a long time to knit? Yup. I haven’t cast on the back yet, but I’m feeling very close to being done now, sort of. Just the back, and the hood, and some button bands…..

Runagogo: 60!!!!
No chocolate for me: 29 days
Spring? 50…

Filed by Julia at 8:38 pm under Knitting,Whiskey Sweater
18 Comments

I just cast off the second whiskey front tonight. I’ve been working on it a little bit here and there all week. I don’t know why the second intarsia part took forever, I flew through the first in under two evenings. They’re both blocking now. I stretched those suckers to within an inch of themselves, so the lace would stand out nicely. I have to say I really like working working intarsia back and forth, I don’t know why, but it always turns out flatter than when I knit it in the round. Pictures tomorrow!

I’ve been working on some socks too, on and off.

I bought the yarn, Regia Crazy Color, but not the dk weight, at Lettuce knit over Thanksgiving. That’s how long I’ve been working on them. The first one was knit over a month, and the second just needs the leg. I think I’ll finish them next Sunday, while watching the superbowl. It has been way to long since I finished something, and boy am I getting itchy!

Like my sock blockers? I’ve been knitting socks for years, but never got around to getting a set. These are from Fiber Trends. I bought them yesterday, I went to a yarn shop that’s about 30-40 minutes from me, in Cannonsburgh. It’s called The Knit Shoppe, and I have to say I really liked this place. When you work in a yarn shop, other yarn shops are still fun, but alot have the same things, or close, but this one had lots of fun stuff I hadn’t seen in shops around here before. I’m definately going back! I’m proud for not having bought any yarn, cause I could have!

Today I noticed the days getting longer, I looked out the window around five, and it was still very light. Although, it’s very hard to keep hopes up for spring, when the weather looked like this:

Filed by Julia at 9:55 pm under Knitting,Spinning
13 Comments

I think the bastards at St*rb*cks gave me caffeinated coffee. I am a decaf girl. Caffeine makes me
a) hyper 2) chatty and d) if consumed for long periods of time, tense. I’ve already called and chatted with everyone that I knew would answer their phones right now, including my Nonno,(italian for grampa) who turns 83 today. Now I’m going to fill this post with nonstop nonsensical chatter until I get bored and go hit the treadmill to run the rest of the hyper off.

My Runagogo total, not counting today, is 42 miles. I’m pretty happy about that, and intend to hit the halfway mark well before Febuary. I skipped two days last week. One day I ate Chinese food as a nice reward/break for/from healthy living and 22 days with no chocolate (can I also tell you that my light to moderate acne has completely gone away? Yay for detoxing!) and felt that I might puke if I tried to treadmill on a seriously full belly. General Tso’s, Mmm. The other day the little pinky toe on my right foot was bothering me. The nail on it got a little messed up from running, it’s mostly good now, just a bit sore. Other than that I’ve been averaging 2.5 miles a day.
My treadmill faces a wall with some shelves on it, due to lack of space on my ground floor, and the fact that I’m paranoid to move it upstairs in case the floors in my old house give way while I’m on it. So I make the most of not having a window to look out of by placing my 12″ powerbook on the top shelf and watching dvds as I go. This works out superfantastically, and the time flies by.

I’m hoping to be about ten lbs lighter by March first. I feel that’s a reasonable and heathy goal, and if I come even close, I will be happy. Today I pulled on a pair of clean jeans, and they weren’t very tight, cause you know how you always have to stretch out newly cleaned jeans? They loosened up right away. I may be imagining it, being as this is only the 22nd day of all this healthy stuff, but this made me happy, and is just the little bit of insentive to keep going that I need.

What else? Mmm, yesterday I made a pricey purchase on a very good deal. It’s fiber related, but I’m keeping it under wraps at the moment, til I get it cleaned up and ready to use. It has nothing whatever to do with Vesper Sock Yarn, or my business, just so you know. It’s something I felt I would buy in the long run, and since a very good deal came up, I dipped into the savings I never touch and bought it. I am a gearhead.

How bout knitting? I finished the fronts of my green sweater. I did indeed pick up my whiskey sweater and am almost through the second front. When I finish that I’m knitting the sleeves on the green sweater, and finishing that up, then I’ll do the Whiskey back, which I’m kind of dreading. It’s alot of tiny stitches to work across, and will take awhile. This makes me glad I knit the sleeves first. Then after that I can start piecing it together and knit the hood, and the button bands. I like outlaying my knitting plans here first, cause most of the time if I announce them, that’s exactly how they get done.

This post reads like one big run on sentence. Cool.
Okay, I think I’m posted out now. Off to treadmill.

ETA: It is now 1:49 in the AM. I am still UPUPUPUP, despite 4 miles on the t-mill, and 2 Stoli and Tonics at the Hooka bar around the corner. F*cking coffee.

Filed by Julia at 7:52 pm under Caffeinated,Running
21 Comments

This is the third staight day of rain rain rain. This is the fifth total day of rain. All this grey is going to kill me for sure. On the plus side, if Pittsburgh had been having an at all normal winter, this would be a 3 day blizzard. Luckily for all of you, the sun sort of came out just long enough for me to take some wip photos to show.

I’ve been working on my Green Nature wool sweater. Last time you saw it, it was just a wee bit of green ribbing. The sweater shape is loosely based on a Rowan crew neck number from I forget which magazine. I’m totally rewriting it for thinner yarn, and also for it to be a zip up cardigan. So I’m pretty much making it up and writing the pattern out as I go so that if I really like it I can knit more.

Behold!

It took a little while to knit the whole back, just because the holidays were busy. I finished the back up last week, gave it a good block, and started the fronts. One down, one to go. These fronts are just flying off the needles. I only let myself have some knitting time in the evenings after all my work is done. Or mostly done. So it’s nice that these are working up so quickly. Hopefully the sleeves go just as fast! I’m thinking that after I finish this front, I’m going to finish the second front of the whiskey sweater, before I completely forget where I left off on it. Cause that would suck.

I’ve also been a little itchy to start some spinning. I have 4oz of a beautiful olivey green merino that I picked up in Maryland.

This Merino is from Cloverleaf Farms in their Sage colorway. I love spinning merino, it’s an absolutley great fiber, and I think this color is going to be beautifully heathery. I’m going to spin this up as thin as I can, and make it a 2ply. I think I might have to get started tonight!

Runagogo: 30 miles down, 70 to go.
Days without chocolate: 14

Filed by Julia at 5:51 pm under Knitting,Spinning
16 Comments

Welcome to 2007. I may be 11 days late, but I’m not counting. So this year, I am indeed Knitting from my Stash. I thought about doing this before, because, well, I might just die in a stash-valange someday if I don’t ween it down, and now it’s officially a “thing”, and also, you know, Lemmings. So there you have it. I have enough yarn for dozens of socks, and therefor, sock yarn will not be bought. This one hurts. I love sock yarn. I have one overflowing bin of it, so no more for a while, unless, of course, Adrian dyes up something so fabulous it must be mine, and there happens to be an extra 20 bucks or so in my paypal. Hee.

I have enough yarn for a few sweaters that I had wanted to knit, and bought yarn for, but have yet to knit. These include, but are not limited to,

2 Rogues, Jodi’s Mariah (I love this one!), a Poppy, I’m trying to think what else here. Oh yeah, I have about 13 skeins of regia crazy color 6ply, that I bought on sale about 3 years ago that I want a sweater out of, and there’s that bag of felted tweed that needs to be a crewneck pullover, then I have a mountain of handspun that I want to knit a mish/mash stripey top down cardigan number from. (Deep Breath) Then there’s a box of Lana Grossa Royal Tweed in red I need to find something to do with, ( so nice to knit with, this yarn is) Then recently, I mean, this fall, I bought enough Donagal tweed to knit a Central park Hoodie from, in the exact green too, and may have started the sleeves, but got bored with, and am now excited to start agian. Also, I have 15 skeins of Rowanspun in the discontinued and highly coveted “Goblin” colorway. I don’t know what to knit with that yet. Uh, not to mention boxes and bins of odd balls and ends that I bought to swatch for this or that or the other.

Then there’s that bin of unmentionable yarn. The foofy, the acrylic, the just plain bad. We all have a bin like this. Admit it. It’s the “before we knew what good yarn was ” bin. The “shopping for yarn at J*anns and Mich*els, before we discovered the world of fine yarn shops, knit blogs, and fiber fests”, bin. The “I might just donate all of to the goodwill, just to be rid of it”, bin. That would free up a whole nother bin! For more yarn! If I was buying it, that is. *sigh* I did this to myself, and goddamn if I didn’t enjoy that ride!

The only thing I haven’t figured out yet is how to handle fiber fests. I went to three last year, so I pretty much am going for the fun of it, and don’t have a need to buy. I do like to pick up a few things that I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else. Some special fibers to spin purchases, and that kind of thing. I also have decided that when I am seriously jonesing for new yarn, that I will spin from my much smaller, but equally nice fiber stash. Thus giving me more to choose from when I’m knitting my top down mish/mash number. Methods to madness people. It’s key. I can do it!

At least for the first 6 months of 2007, anyways…..

I’m also unofficially participating in Runagogo. As of yesterdays 4 mile stretch, I’m at 19 of 100. I’m averaging roughly 2 miles a day, but I didn’t run on Tuesday, because I opted to go out for Sushi when I got home from work instead, that may also have turned into James and Julia’s drunken night out, but I digress. So I had to make it up yesterday. The running, not the Sushi and booze part, is also part of my loose 20 lbs if it kills me, but in a healthy way, non-resolution. I believe New Years resolutions are made to be broken, so this is not so much a resolution, as a, as my dad puts it, lifestyle. It’s working for me so far. I don’t even miss chocolate. (Much…)

Filed by Julia at 7:19 pm under General
10 Comments