RSS3 Zimmermann Designs I Will Knit Before Death
To many knitters Elizabeth Zimmermann is our greatest Knitting Godmother—akin to, I submit, a knitting goddess, who gave to us discernible knitting lessons, decipherable patterns, and the license to knit as we please. EZ lived such a wonderful life, as she tells us in her Knitting Around, and made it her task to teach other knitters that knit and purl weren’t such hard things and look! It’s so much easier if you knit around because then you don’t have to purl AT ALL!
My first introduction to EZ was through her book Knitting Without Tears. Although I wasn’t in tears at the time, I was still a beginning knitter who didn’t know much except how to knit scarves. (And really, a person only needs so many damn scarves that at some point, you HAVE to at least start on mittens.) EZ employed a conversational manner of teaching which I fell in love with, showing us it is best to laugh and knit at the same time, for if you drop a stitch you don’t much fret.
My EZ collection was made complete this morning, when my mail carrier put into my hot little hands a package containing not just another set of Options needles, but Knitting Around, The Opinionated Knitter, and Knitting Workshop. If there is ever a fire these five books will be the first things I save, in addition to Maggie Rigghetti’s Knitting In Plain English. Okay, second things I save, the first being the cats and dog.
Three designs I have been enamored with are her Bog Jacket, Seamless Hybrid Sweater, and the Adult Surprise Jacket. I shall knit these before I die.
- Seamless Hybrid
Appears to be a rarity amongst women-wearers, although that may just be my impression due to the lack of online documentation by women knitters. It does look great on guys, though, and I’m thinking with a few well-placed short rows and a bit of waist shaping (and maybe a couple bust darts) I can churn out an awesome sweater.
- Adult Surprise Jacket (ASJ)
I have my hesitations with this design. Firstly, I’ve only ever come across pictures of the Baby version, which often means folks have knit it with super-crazy color combos. I’m more of a 4-color-limit-per-garment gal and seeing picture after picture of jackets with 80 different colors scares me. But the image to the right is not quite so crazy and lets me know a toned-down color scheme is possible and may even look great. Secondly, I’m not sure how to work in shaping as the construction of the jacket is a bit strange (it ends up a wobbly rectangle and is seamed together at key spots). It could just turn out boxy, and that’s never good.
- Bog Jacket
Holy shit is this cute. The gal on the right added a double-ended zipper and I think I’ll do the same. I’ve started this one, last week, and decided upon a dark gray (slate gray? coal gray?) body with pink edging. I’ve incorporated short rows on both the back and the sides and waist shaping so that all my curves are taken into account. I’m using Cascade 220, which is 100% wool so it will be perfect through our Indiana winters. It’s mindless knitting, all garter stitch, which means I can watch a movie or read websites and knit at the same time. BUT, it’s garter stitch, rows and rows and rows of garter stitch. Over a thousand yards of garter stitch. The shaping provides some relief and a bit of excitement, if only because I’m not quite sure I’m doing it right.
Yum.
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