Every knitter has an origin story, and this is mine. From knitting my first stitches at the age of ten to my knitting masterpiece in 2017, to starting Knitrition. I hope you find humor, relatability, inspiration, camaraderie, and/or solidarity in my knitting story.
The First Stitches
My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was about ten (a non-functional tiny pot holder that she cast on for me). And that was the end of that.
I tried to pick knitting up again during a holiday break from college (a lace scarf, do not recommend). Every time I made a mistake, I would rip the whole thing out and start over (not necessary, but I didn’t know otherwise).
Knitting Aimlessly
My first full-time job out of college, I was working at a residential treatment facility for eating disorders. Many of the patients liked to knit during sessions to keep their hands busy. One of the therapists started bringing her crochet to help support the relaxed vibe. I decided this would be a great time to try to pick knitting back up again.
Something they don’t tell you in school is how much free time (for knitting!) you’ll have once you start working full time since you won’t be spending your evenings doing endless amounts of homework. You need a hobby!
The next few years were a wandering path of misguided (as in zero guidance) knitting experiments and decisions. (If only I’d had the Knitritionist’s Knitting Starter Kit!)
A Cotton Blanket
I went to Hobby Lobby and got a knitting magazine. I chose a blanket (do not recommend at the beginning) that was a combination of miles of stockinette knitting (do not recommend when you’re starting out) and crochet, which I didn’t know how to do, in cotton (do not recommend at first).
I bought a cheap set (do not recommend) of interchangeable needles (highly recommend). The cheap set would untwist while knitting and I would lose stitches (do not recommend).
I still have not finished that pattern, but I did learn to crochet because of it, so it wasn’t a complete loss.
Discovering a Favorite Yarn
A few weeks later, my mom took me to a local yarn store (that no longer exists, I do not have a LYS, and I am not okay). I picked out a beautiful skein of Manos del Uruguay Maxima in Oxygen (soft, single ply, beautiful, a great first yarn, and one of my favorites to this day).
The clerk recommended straight Knitter’s Pride Dreamz needles in size 7 (a great starter knitting size, and a wonderful straight wooden needle, but circular is better). No pattern was recommended. The clerk told me to cast on some stitches and just knit until I felt like stopping (do not recommend).
I went back to my apartment and just began knitting willy-nilly.
I figured out how to knit a headband/ear warmer thing flat and seamed at the bottom. It didn’t really fit and the proportions weren’t great, but I did it! And I think I frogged it years later.
It really is remarkable that I still liked knitting at this point.
I finally had the idea to look up knitting patterns on Pinterest, and found a few hosted on Etsy, but I hadn’t discovered Ravelry yet. I did knit some beautiful headbands I found there.
One Skein Wonders
I was officially infatuated with knitting and yarn even though I didn’t really know what I was doing yet. I apologize for the knit gifts I gave during this phase.
Any time I found yarn I liked, I bought one skein even if I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. One day I was browsing at Michael’s, and I purchased a few knitting books, Cast On Bind Off (one of the best, highly recommend), a book of crochet snowflakes, and One Skein Wonders, Perfect! Or so I thought.
I fell in love with the look of a herringbone-like stitch pattern in One Skein Wonders that is beautiful, fiddly, and uses a ton of yarn. I decided it was the perfect project for another skein of Maxima, this time in Purple Rain.
Sometime in the middle of this project, I BROKE MY WRIST while ice skating in Rockefeller Center (DO NOT recommend). So my knitting journey came to a halt once again. I never finished this project, but after my wrist healed, I was ready to try knitting yet again.
Temperature Scarf
In all of my excitement and misguided knitter wisdom, I decided that I would make a temperature scarf (a year-long project, do not recommend) in that beautifully tedious stitch pattern from One Skein Wonders. I never did finish this project.
I picked all of my colors, in Maxima of course, and the only store that had all of the chosen colors in stock was Eat.Sleep.Knit.
Eat.Sleep.Knit
I placed my order, and was promptly inducted into knitter-land. (Thank you, Eat.Sleep.Knit!)
The yarn arrived with information about Eat.Sleep.Knit’s annual Yarnathon – a customer loyalty program that awards “yards” (points) for purchases and knit-a-longs. AND they send you scratch-off cards with every order – winning $5 or more is common!
Needless to say, I was fully invested. I knit exclusively Eat.Sleep.Knit knit-a-long projects with Eat.Sleep.Knit-purchased yarn that would earn me yards for years to come. Eat.Sleep.Knit gets full credit for turning me into a Knitter with a capital K. Now I was really and truly obsessed.
I tried all kinds of things based on Eat.Sleep.Knit knit-a-longs that I wouldn’t have tried on my own. ESK will always get credit for the metamorphosis of my knitting lifestyle.
P.S. I am not sponsored by Eat.Sleep.Knit, but ESK, if you’re listening, I would love to be! I might just be your biggest fan.
Oh, and the knit-a-longs are how I discovered Ravelry, and could I really have been expected to be a successfully modern knitter without that? I think not. Ravelry really is the best place to find patterns, track your yarn stash and usage, log your projects, and more. (In my professional life, I have lunch lady origins, so of course I must track my inventory and production.)
Switching Knitting Styles
By the way, all this time I was still knitting English-style, and my tension was so tight that it actually hurt to knit. How did I still like knitting?!?!
One of the patterns I tried had a k1,p1 ribbing section, and that is just so very tedious in English-style. I decided to try to learn to knit in a more efficient way. I tried all kinds of techniques and finally landed on continental style. Thanks to learning crochet previously, this proved to be more natural than I thought.
Life lesson: Just because you learned something a certain way doesn’t mean you have to do something that way forever. “The best advice of all…is to learn what works for you, and make your own special blend.” – The Pout Pout Fish and the Can’t Sleep Blues
To this day, I wonder whether my grandmother taught me originally in English-style or Continental-style, but I just cannot remember.
Persian Dreams
Fast forward to 2017 – I knit my masterpiece. It was a double-knit version of the fingering-weight Persian Dreams blanket, which was the year’s Eat.Sleep.Knit year-long knit-a-long. The Persian Dreams knit-a-long was announced on Christmas Day in 2016, and I remember spending that day lounging around at my parents’ house and picking out my colors, which I still LOVE.
I made swatches in stranded colorwork as written, in crochet, and in double knitting with some Manos del Uruguay Alegria that I already had on hand. I decided I liked the double knitting swatch the best. I tested different needle styles (size 2): DPNs, flexi-flips, circular – interchangeable and fixed. I calculated how double knitting instead of stranded colorwork would change my yardage requirements.
At midnight on January 1, I placed the biggest yarn order of my life. And when it arrived, I wound it into balls BY HAND (do not recommend). It took days. I think it really speaks to my knitting persistence that I wound yarn by hand for five years. I do wind a beautiful yarn ball though.
2017 was the year of the Candyland theme Yarnathon, and I was a Taffy Giraffe, which remains my very favorite ESK mascot of all time. It might just be my spirit animal. Isn’t she cute?!
I targeted finishing 2 hexagons a month. I blocked and grafted (with Kitchener stitch) as I went. My guest bed (and all of my spare time) was dedicated to this blanket for a year.
I ended up finishing in October, and at this point, I considered myself an expert knitter. I felt like I could do anything knitting-wise that I put my mind to. I’m not scared of anything any more.
I have now streaked, seamed, cabled, knit lace (poorly and then I figured it out), knit sweaters that fit (and ones that don’t), you name it.
Knitting Podcasts
I’m pretty sure the following year is when I discovered knitting podcasts. These podcasts broadened my knitting horizons so much more than I could have imagined and became the main source of my knitspiration.
By the way, knitting podcasts are on YouTube so that you can see the knitting. Maybe this makes them vlogs, but the term in knitter-land is “podcast.” (There are some great non-video, actual podcasts, too.)
Knitrition
All of that brings me to Knitrition! I decided that I want to share my knitting life with the internet, but I don’t know if I’m up for a YouTube channel just yet. I have learned so many lessons on my knitting journey.
There are so many things I wish I knew from the beginning – things that would have given me a more successful start, too – and I want to share them with you.
Remember, I don’t have a LYS, and none of my friends are knitters (I have tried!), so I decided to share my “purls of wisdom” with the internet (along with some recipes and lifestyle things). I hope you find something you’re looking for here.
Welcome to Knitrition!
So far, my best tips include:
And I’ve even designed some patterns:
Painted Wings Shawl Pattern
Brioche Panes Knit Blanket Pattern
Endless Love Spell Ear Warmer Pattern
And I’ve written some foodie/lifestyle stuff, too:
