Knitting without Tears

Do you love to knit-and hate to purl? Have you ever started a sweater without enough yarn from the same dye lot to finish it? When you cast on, do you end up with a tail of yarn that's maddeningly too long or too short? Elizabeth Zimmermann comes to the rescue with clever solutions to frustrating problems and step-by-step instructions for brilliant, timeless designs.In Knitting Without Tears,you'll find elegant designs for:Color-pattern Norwegian ski sweatersSeamless patterned-yoke sweatersHooded garter-stitch jackets for babiesWatch caps, socks, slippers, mittens, and more!This classic and influential book is poised to inspire a whole new generation of knitters who have yet to discover the joys and comforts of knitting. As the lady herself once put it, "properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either."

The New York Times [Elizabeth Zimmermann] brought a penetrating intellect and a sculptor's sensitivity to revolutionizing the ancient art of knitting.

Auteur

Elizabeth Zimmermann (1910-1999) was born near London, England, and attended art school in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany, before immigrating to the U.S. in 1937. Frustrated by magazine editors who translated her conversational knitting instructions into abbreviated code, she started her own knitting newsletter and launched Schoolhouse Press, a mail-order business that still sells knitting supplies, books, and videos under her daughter Meg Swansen's guiding hand. In the mid-1960s she hosted The Busy Knitter, a nationally syndicated public television show, and by the early 1970s had become an icon of the knitting world. This and her three lively instructional books -- Knitting Around, Knitter's Almanac,and Knitting Workshop -- are treasured by knitters around the world.

Texte du rabat

Do you love to knit -- and hate to purl? Have you ever started a sweater without enough yarn from the same dye lot to finish it? When you cast on, do you end up with a tail of yarn that's maddeningly too long or too short? Elizabeth Zimmermann comes to the rescue with clever solutions to frustrating problems and step-by-step instructions for brilliant, timeless designs. In "Knitting Without Tears, " you'll find elegant designs for: Color-pattern Norwegian ski sweaters Seamless patterned-yoke sweaters Hooded garter-stitch jackets for babies Watch caps, socks, slippers, mittens, and more!This classic and influential book is poised to inspire a whole new generation of knitters who have yet to discover the joys and comforts of knitting. As the lady herself once put it, "properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either."

Résumé
Classic knitting bible that removes the frustration and puts the fun back into knitting with easy-to-follow instructions and timeless designs.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1

The Opinionated Knitter

Most people have an obsession; mine is knitting.

Your hobby may be pie-baking, playing the piano, or potbelly-stove collecting, and you can sympathize with my enthusiasm, having an obsession of your own. Will you forgive my single-mindedness, and my tendency to see knitting in everything?

Carvings and sculpture remind me only of Aran and other textured designs; when I see a beautiful print my first thought is how it would adapt to color pattern knitting; confronted by a new fashion, I immediately start drawing in the air with my forefinger to see if it would suit itself to knitting, and if so, how -- which way the grain should run, if the shape could be knitted in, and what stitch would be most effective.

So please bear with me, and put up with my opinionated, nay, sometimes cantankerous attitude. I feel strongly about knitting.

What follows is an attempt to explain some of the ideas that come while designing knitted garments, and during the pleasant hours spent working on the plain straight pieces.

I am taking it for granted that you are already familiar with the rudiments of the craft.

Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either.

When I say properly practiced, I mean executed in a relaxed manner, without anxiety, strain, or tension, but with confidence, inventiveness, pleasure, and ultimate pride.

If you hate to knit, why, bless you, don't; follow your secret heart and take up something else. But if you start out knitting with enjoyment, you will probably continue in this pleasant path.

Consider the agreeable material and tools. (I admit to a rooted preference for wool.)

WOOL

Soft wool from the simple silly sheep can be as fine as a cobweb, tough and strong as string, or light and soft as down. There are scientific reasons why wool is the best material for knitting, and into these I will not go. I only know that it is warm, beautiful, and durable. Woolen socks never become cold and clammy, however wet. A woolen sweater is so water-resistant that when dropped overboard it floats long enough to give you ample time to rescue it. The surface on caps and mittens made of wool repels all but the most persistent of downpours. I have in mind a particularly beautiful cap made of the finest wool and angora at seven stitches to the inch in the lovely designs of Bohus in Sweden. It has been worn for two seasons by a dedicated ski-teacher in all manner of blizzards and dirty weather, and she swears that it is the warmest and driest hat she has -- snow perches on it but does not penetrate.

For people allergic to wool, one's heart can only bleed. Synthetics are a marvelous substitute, but a substitute is all they are. The allergic must be grateful that they didn't live in the Dark Ages of fifty years ago when one kept warm in winter with wool, or froze to death in linen and cotton. Of course, some avoided pleurisy by swathing themselves in sables.

It is true that a synthetic sweater can be washed and dried in machines, but to me this rather reduces it to the level of a sweatshirt. Washing a real sweater is akin to bathing a baby, and brings the same satisfaction of producing a clean, pretty, sweet-smelling creature -- very rewarding.

There is a persuasive old wives' tale about one reason why wool shrinks. It goes, "Never wind your wool into a tight hard ball, as this will make it stretched and taut. You knit it up into a sweater. Then it gets dirty and you wash it. The wool, encouraged by the dampness, goes back to its original unstretched state, with the result that the whole sweater shrinks." Think it over.

"Ply" is a frequently misunderstood concept. It has nothing to do with the thickness of yarn, except in a relative way, and everything to do with its construction.

A ply is a strand of wool. Two, three, four, or more strands are twisted together to make 2-ply, 3-ply, 4-ply, or many-plied wool. Since the strands or plies can be of any thickness, it is clear that the thickness of wool does not depend on the number of plies but on the thickness of the individual ply. I have used 9-ply wool which was no thicker than 4-ply knitting worsted, and I'm sure all are familiar with 2-ply wool so heavy and bulky that it knits up at 2 1/2 stitches to 1 inch.

So when buying wool be guided by the recommended GAUGE rather than by the number of plies, and compare this recommended GAUGE with the GAUGE specified in your knitting instructions.

When wondering how much wool to buy, ask the saleslady. She knows by experience. If she doesn't know and isn't interested, go to another store. In fact, start off by going to the best specialty yarn shop or good department store that you can find. It is not wise to shop around for cheap wool unless you are very experienced, or are willing to risk spending hours of work on an object that will shrink, fade, or run. A well-made sweater, k…