About

About me:
I live in Minnesota with a cat named Kashka. My sister and parents live in southeast Wisconsin. My sister is married and has three kids. I knit for them a lot.

What else do I do? I was a competitive Irish dancer, and also took Highland lessons for a year, but never got a chance to compete. I work in Accounting for a personal injury law firm in downtown Minneapolis. I knit a lot on the bus commute.

I learned to knit while working at a summer camp in 2004 from another staff member. I had tried to learn from my mom when I was a kid, and I did great with the cast on, but getting the stitches from one needle to the other had me completely baffled. I tried to learn again when I was in college using the internet and that didn’t get me very far.

As far as other fibery pursuits, I like dying yarn. I learned to crochet, but haven’t made anything beyond a swatch. I have a drop spindle but haven’t quite managed to figure out what I’m doing with it. I took a spinning class at the Fiber Studio in January/February 2008 and got my wheel (a Louet S50) in February. I also like making beaded stitch markers when the mood strikes.

I’ve always been crafty (well, since 3rd or 4th grade, at least). My other crafty pursuits include: cross stitch and embroidery, sewing and quilting, beading, scrapbooking, soap and candle making. I return to some projects as the mood strikes, but knitting tends to take priority.

About the blog/site:
criosa.com has existed in some form since late 2001. I had a few websites on free sites (geocities, etc) prior to that. In the beginning, the site was home to my Irish dance site and a number of Girl Scouts related sites (I was a troop leader, camp staffer, and avid patch trader).

Purling Away was created to document my knitting shortly after I started. Yeah, didn’t take me long to find the online knitting community, which is probably a good thing. ;) I originally used blogger to create the knitblog, but that felt pretty limiting real quick. So I switched to WordPress, which I love using.

The site is hosted at Total Choice Hosting. Unfortunately for me, they don’t have a referral program (that I’m aware of), but I’ve been with them since the summer of 2003 and have had excellent service. I’d highly recommend them if you’re interested in your own webhosting. I use Dotster for my domain registration (they do have a referral program, so please use my link there).