I do love Elizabeth Zimmermann...

I have been immersing myself in all things Zimmermann lately, with her book "Knitting Around", and the DVD set of "Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop" (cheers for the loan, Dianne!). I found her 'Digressions' throughout "Knitting Around" absolutely fascinating. An autobiography of sorts, she details her life growing up the England, studying and travelling through Europe, meeting and marrying her husband and emigrating to settle in the United States and raise their family.

The patterns (if you can call them that - EZ certainly encourages you to think and work patterns out for yourself!) are inspirational, many of the jumpers are seamless as the body and sleeves are knit on dpns or circulars, leaving just a handful of stitches to be grafted, usually in the underarms at the end. It makes me want to cast on immediately for a jumper for Pete, WonderBoy, or both! I actually have the yarn to knit a jumper for WonderBoy and it's next on my list of 'to be knitted', but I am sorely tempted to chuck the pattern and have a crack at EZ's methods...

I already own "Knitting Workshop" as a book; I bought it from Amazon (waay back in the day when the Aussie dollar stood up to the US dollar in a reasonable way - now with the crap exchange rate and the shipping charges, my Amazon wishlist is well out of reach...) purely to get a hold of the 'Baby Surprise Jacket' which is what I thought was a pattern in the book, ready to be followed as written. I couldn't quite grasp the concept of what EZ was getting at, the way there were no instructions, but lots and lots of suggestions and equations. I put the book on my shelf of pattern books and magazines, telling myself I'd get back to it later on, when I could concentrate on it properly. Until I started watching the DVDs.Hearing EZ speak and being able to watch as she demonstrates the knitting really helped me to understand the concepts behind her methods. It wasn't anywhere near as complicated as I thought it was going to be; gauge was the biggest sum to be calculated before starting the project. Just a few careful measurements and multiplication before casting on. So now, after WonderBoy's jumper is completed, a Baby Surprise Jacket for Little One is on the list... the ever-increasing list...