Introducing my sister

Seeing as she was so kind as to link to me ... here's my sister. Confessions of an English Actor/Mum/Whatever

Works in Progress

So.. after the previous introduction.. this is what's currently in my knitting tote bag. Clicking on any of the pictures should take you to a larger size view.

Funky Scarf

This is a simple garter stitch scarf, with Lion Brand Fancy Fur in Stained Glass knitted together with their Wool-Ease worsted weight in Blue Heather. Very funky, very fun, easy to knit, and the black furry bits cover any dropped stitches. The pattern, such as it is, is the Fireworks scarf from Stitch'n'Bitch.


Twisted Purling



This was my first attempt at purling, using a knit 2 purl 2 rib. As you can see, while there's definitely a ribbing thing happen, the stitches don't look right. This is because I'm lousy at turning 2-D pictures into 3-D actions. (Not sure how well that bodes for my future career as a knitter, but oh well.) What I was doing was putting the right hand needle in at the back of the stitch, and twisting it round to the front, then purling it. Oops. Luckily a video clip from knittinghelp.com and a few minutes with Suzy at my City Knits class last night got me sorted. As proven by....


The start of the hat


Here it is. The start of my simple seamed hat. The yarn is Cascade 220 color 9453, and Suzy talked me into buying Addi Turbo circular needles. They're certainly fun to use, though I'm not up to any kind of speed with them yet! That's about 8 rows of ribbing, and it's looking so much better. There's still a few wonky moments here and there, but I think it'll be fine once it's done. My goal for next Wednesday night is to finish up to 14 rows of ribbing, then purl one row .. then I'm ready to start increasing.

So that's where I'm up to for now. I'm also wanting to start the Big Bad Baby Blanket from Stitch'n'Bitch, especially coz I'm off to a festival for Mothers Day weekend, so will have loads of knitting time... but I need to find out colour choices from my sister, and I'm not sure if I can afford to splurge on any more yarn at the moment. Hmmm.

Getting Going

Well, here begins something I guess. Welcome to Kirsti Knits. I'm 36 years old, a happily "domestic-partnered" lesbian, from England originally, now living in Michigan. I work as a researcher at Wayne State University, and this blog is intended for me to vent about, moan about, enthuse about and show off, my latest creative venture.

Inspired by some friends online, I've decided to take up knitting. So I went out and bought myself Stich'n'Bitch, then hit Michaels for needles and yarn ... and several swatches and half a scarf later, I think I'm hooked. My current knitting goal is Jodi Green's 'Mariah' cardigan.. I love the celtic style knotwork. Of course, I've got a long way to go to get to there yet, but it's always nice to have a vision, right?

I tried to go to the local Royal Oak Stitch'n'Bitch meetup this past Monday, but nobody was there. *sniff*. I also signed up for the beginners classes at City Knits, which was last night. Suzie was just lovely, and figured that since I could cast on, knit and almost purl (she corrected my technique and it's going fine now), I could skip the first scarf and go directly to the hat. The shame was I'd picked out some nice heathered purple yarn which I'd love for a scarf, but am unlikely to wear for a hat. I much prefer green, to go with my red hair. Purple however, as you can probably tell from this colour scheme, is my current favourite. (I'm still tweaking this colour scheme from the default green. Haven't checked the comments yet. So if random green stuff shows up, I apologise!)

So anyway, I got started on the hat, and I'm now knitting on circular needles (go me!) and next week will learn the intricacies of "make 1". I'm somewhat tempted to go out and buy more yarn, green this time, and get a second hat on the go, which will obviously be better than this first attempt.