Diana’s Kristi Comfort Wrap Post
My Sister-in-Love, Diana, is a gift to me. She married my brother after he was widowed for a full 10 years, and they are in love. She’s my friend. And… (ta tum, tum) she’s my knitter. My test knitter, my problem-solver, my sample knitter. I don’t know how I got as much done as I did when she was not in my knitting realm. I’m very grateful.
Diana has test-knit a good number of patterns for me, including the Kristi Comfort Shawl. You see, I knit the first one for Kristi/RedDogKnits not intending to ever make another. I should know better! People liked it, and they asked for the pattern.
And then, as I too often do, I had to go back and remember what I had done and write down what I thought it was. And Diana made sure I wrote it well.
I love the pattern for many reasons. It is really easy to knit but it’s not boring because you change one of the two yarns you hold together, on every new row. It’s garter fabric, with literally casting on, knitting, and binding off, but with fun in the color choosing. It’s a great stash buster (I have almost no yarn left in partial skeins anymore, they all got used in Kristi Wraps. It’s a lovely predicament!
Diana just posted a thoughtful and loving column today about knitting these shawls. About how many of them she has knit (close to twenty), and why. She doesn’t mention specifically that she knit one for me, with yarns I hand-picked, just because she wanted to. A professional knitting professional almost never gets to keep knitting he/she designs… almost everything becomes a sample. However, because Diana made mine just for me, I get to keep it. I love it deeply.
Diana has knit one of these for all the shops I work for in the Lansing area: Rae’s Yarn Boutique (purple Nashua Creative Focus), Threadbear Fiberarts (indigo blue Malabrigo Worsted), Little Red Schoolhouse Yarns (heather gray Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted with blue/green/purple), and Yarn Garden in Charlotte (spring green, I think Cascade Pastaza).
Mine is hot pink, no surprise. With purple and turquoise accents… including some of the turquoise fingering weight that I used as my background color in my self-portrait last summer. Very meaningful for a million reasons.
Maybe you would like to read Diana’s post for yourself.
Photos: Me wearing the sample that now lives at Rae’s shop, (though the photo is a bit pale). Kristi Wrap Diana knit for one friend, modeled by another friend.