In the plant room off of the living room of the house I grew up in, there was a stand-up loom. I used to play with it as a kid. I never wove anything on it, but I loved this machine so much. It now resides in my parents’ basement, and I begged my parents not to get rid of it even though I doubt my mom could really part with it either. I think part of me hopes that one day in the distant future I will have a space for it to be used frequently.

So weaving. It’s always been around, in some form, in my life. What does that mean for me now? I’ve decided to make my own DIY simple loom to weave rag rugs out of old clothes. Since I don’t know where in Philadelphia to buy weaving supplies (anyone? anyone?), I turned to WEBS to get cotton warp for my recycled rag rugs. That was a mistake. In a week, I will be receiving 5 cones of cotton and 6 hanks of slubby cotton mill ends (in pink and orange. oh man!). Like I really need another craft to do…

I finished my Sunrise Circle Jacket! Of course, this being my first sweater, I learned many things. Such as, perhaps I should block my pieces before seaming together. Perhaps I should measure myself a lot more than once or twice. My torso is longer than the sweater size I fit into, and if I had read all the Ravelry postings regarding sizing before casting on I would have know how to fudge this for a perfect fit. That’s ok. The sweater is a bit short, by Kasy didn’t notice it as a mistake. He thought that was the style of the sweater. And it is very comfortable.

Pattern: Sunrise Circle Jacket by Kate Gilbert
Size: 35”
Began: March 13, 2008
Finish: April 29, 2008
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Donegal Aran Tweed in purple (dye lot 1901)
# of Skeins: 10
Needles: Size 7 knit picks circulars
Mods: none, except I purled one row when I should have knit it on the left sleeve, leaving a lone rib. I kind of like it so it stayed instead of getting ripped out. No button closures–using a kilt safety pin.
Ravelry page

[I need to take a picture of the sweater being worn, but I got sick the first day I wore it and there hasn't been time since.]

Luckily Philadelphia gave me a nice chilled day to wear my sweater the first day after it finished being blocked. Of course, after only a few hours at work I began to get a fever and the rumblings of a cold/stress induced ickiness. The cure? A day and a half on the couch napping, watching television, and knitting. I even managed to successfully turn my first sock heel from the toe-up!

I’m brought these socks with me on Rosie’s bus to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. In transit to Maryland, I also swatched Cascade 220 for Wicked.

I’m headed off to a mountain biking thing in Philadelphia, right now. But tonight I’m looking forward to going through all the yarn I bought yesterday and looking at the pictures I took. I enjoyed the Sheep and Wool festival and will probably go back next year. However, I hope my shyness isn’t as bad next year, since I didn’t introduce myself to anyone at the Ravelry meet-up. So silly, in retrospect, but yeah…that shyness…totally lame.

In 24 hours I will be writing my last assignment for this semester–a final exam in Land Preservation. Rather than hemming my Sunrise Circle Jacket like I want to, I am catching up on the mounds of reading I’ve avoided for this class over the past month.

It’s pouring rain in Philadelphia, as well. This makes me want to curl up with knitting, a movie, the beast and Kasy even more so.

Oh, and I didn’t blog about it, but we took a great ride to Wissahikon Creek last weekend and saw lots of great stuff. There is a flickr set of the pictures. Pay special attention to the frogs. They were super cute…until I realized that they were trying to procreate at my feet. A little awkward for everyone involved.

Well, the touring bicycle is finished. Done. Enjoying its able to ride beautifully status. And I love it. It weighs 34 pounds and feels like a dream.

with the upcoming primary, of course! Philadelphia, and more specifically the University of Pennsylvania, was the host for the Stephen Colbert Report for the past week. And guess what? I totally got a ticket and went to the Thursday night taping. I guess there are perks to my office job after all…

While waiting outside the auditorium with some coworkers, we spotted John Edwards sneaking in the side. I think we might have been the only ones to see him. He’s surprisingly short in real life…and his hair looks soft like velvet. After waiting 45 minutes in the lobby with the other VIPs (yes…for once in my life I was a VIP) and impatient, annoying students behind us, we finally got inside. Stephen Colbert is adorable…and also surprisingly short. He’s like a mini-Colbert in real life. And he did a handstand for us. Really, man, he is just so cute. Anyways. There was a Hillary sighting, as she had a bit part on the show, the Ed-Word by John Edwards, who got an amazing cheering round of applause, and an interview with the PA (D) Representative Patrick Murphy (the only rep who has served in Iraq). At the end there was a video-call with Obama which was cute too. I wish they let us bring cameras in there…cause really, what is this story without some candid shots of political figures and a “political figure.”

Well, our primary is next week and I’ve made my decision. I’m ready for PA to stop being all primary talk. It’s kind of repetitive since, you know, practically every other state has done this already and I’ve been keeping up with it in the news.

Yep. It’s still absolutely gorgeous here in Philadelphia! I spent the morning baking, biking, visiting my dear Kasy and work, and am about to celebrate my dear Sarah’s upcoming wedding. This will be the second friend that will be married off, so plus my sister’s wedding, that’s 3 weddings in 3 years. I’m still waiting for a friend to have a baby. Then I’ll really see how different everything has become.

After using my Kitchenaid Stand Mixer for the first time, I see what all the fuss is about. Good grief I am in love! It is the best thing I’ve ever been given (thanks Mom and Dad!). It made a ridiculous amount of cookie baking as easy as anything. You see, I never owned a hand mixer so all my previous baking as been completely by the force of my arm muscles so this beautiful cobalt machine is amazing (and a gorgeous piece of metal).

I also knitted 2 calla lilies from Knitty (The Good, the Gilded, and the Goth) out of scrap wool in purples, greens, and yellow on size 3 dpn. Wrapped a yellow bow around the stems (after sticking take-out chopsticks in the i-cord to make them stiff) and placed on top of the gift-box from Lush full of fragrant flowery pamper supplies and a hand-knitted cotton washcloth (from me) in yellow and blue. I loved this pattern, and will confess that this is the first time I’ve ever knit an i-cord before. So quick to knit, once the first one is done, and they really are simply lovely. All the possibilities this pattern holds is unknown.

So here I sit, with a bowl of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and chocolate chocolate chip cookies, a case of Yard’s Philadelphia Pale Ale (cause when in Philly you drink Philly beer), and the excitement of seeing some friends I haven’t seen in 2.5 years.

This week has been mentally trying. Granted, if I would just buck up and deal with some of my graduate work it would be easier to handle, but what’s the fun in that?!

The past couple of days have been absolutely amazing for Philadelphia weather. 70 degree days, lots of sun, flowers all over the trees, and hope that summer is right around the corner. I’ve been spending a lot of time on bicycles lately. Finally learned how to skid on my track bike and can now officially track stand for all of 5 seconds. I switched over the pedals on my Surly Crosscheck to clipless pedals to try to get used to the clipless shoes I bought when I got my Jamis 29er mountain bike (and the subsequent injury that resulted). Man oh man. I was so against going clipless, but what an uneducated opinion that was. These are amazing.

I doubt I’ll switch over all my bikes to clipless, but at least I can zip along on one bike with these pupps. I know that my touring bike will always have flat pedals, cause I want any reason to be able to ride with flipflops while bicycling around the corners of the world (weather permitting).

Tomorrow is girl’s night in Philadelphia for me and a few select lady friends. We are celebrating one of my favorite lass’s last few weeks of being a bachelorette. Strange to see another friend get hitched, but awesome nonetheless. In the vein of wanting to give away handcrafted things all the time, I am spending my Friday night knitting her a bouquet of flowers (now that I’ve drinking a few beers and done a whole lot of nothing for the past 4 hours). Tomorrow morning commences mission bake a lot of amazing cookies with my Kitchenaid mixer. Sweet.

I will, however, leave you with a nice spring like vision of the city of brotherly love, that I call home.

Well, as I assumed would be the case, I ended up not buying PJ/Ted Leo tickets. I just can’t bring myself to go see PJ in an enormous crowd in New Jersey.

I have 3 weeks until the semester is over. I have lost any and all motivation to do anything school-related. Paper to write, exam to take, and essay/photo collection to produce.

Instead of doing any of that, I’d rather be riding my bike.

In the meantime, however, very slow progress is being made on my knitting. I’m almost done with the left sleeve of the Sunrise Circle Jacket. I bet that it will be full on summer by the time I have the chance to finish this. There’s just too much lovely bicycle weather to take advantage of these days.

It’s not that I’m indecisive. I know what I want to do, it’s just that I worry if my decision is what I should be doing. I constantly second-guess myself. Constantly.

The latest, and most pressing question, that I need to resolve is:

Do I buy an expensive ticket to see my beloved Pearl Jam (with Ted Leo, of all people!) in Camden on June 19th? Do I save the money and just listen to my many Pearl Jam and Ted Leo albums instead? Which would I really enjoy more?

The answer is not as simple as it seems, cause I’m stumped.

True to form, the first day of April in Philadelphia is cloudy with the constant threat of rain, and 70 (?!) degrees. It’s weird outside, to say the least.

I spent a chilly weekend in New York celebrating my sister’s 28th birthday. At the last minute I was able to finish her present, Kate from Knitty.

This pattern was pretty fun to follow, and knitted quickly. I used Plymouth Encore worsted yarn scraps I had around the house, polyfil stuffing, and black plastic safety eyes. I debated on knitting a tail for the cat, since the pattern doesn’t include one, but ran out of time. All in all, it was a successful gift.

When I was visiting Rosie’s Yarn Cellar to purchase some Noro and knitting needles to include in my sister’s present, I was sucked into buying Regia’s Kaffe Fasset sock yarn. The colors are just so lovely! This will go perfectly for Project Spectrum’s EARTH segment. I missed my chance at FIRE, since I got so busy, but I’m hoping that these socks will help jump-start me to creating things for PS. (It just started pouring rain, by the way)

So, I purchased 2 skeins of the Regia in the “mirage landscape” colorway. I’m determined to perfect my sock knitting to where I utilize all the yardage and get great fitting socks. I was thinking about buying a kitchen scale and weighing my yarn, but while that is tempting I just don’t want to have any more stuff. I decided I should learn toe-up sock construction instead. I’m not sure if it’s the yarn, the toe-up knitting, or what, but these were flying off the needles this weekend.

I strolled through Bryant Park on my way to Penn station to return to Philadelphia. Knowing I had some time to kill, I had a mini sock photo shoot and enjoyed the warm sun, bare branches against blue blue sky, and planted flowers. It was also nice that at 9am on a Sunday morning, New York is empty and calm. That’s the only way I really like the city.