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rushthatspeaksAre people enjoying reading these? I'm mostly enjoying writing them.
This catches me up-- I read this book this morning-- so these posts will go back to being one a day.
Elizabeth Zimmermann is the great writer to have come out of knitting books. I wish I could remember how I found her. I would almost recommend her work to the person uninterested in knitting, and would recommend it to people who are not knitters but not actively opposed to it. You can always skim the really technical bits. This one has less memoir than several of her others do, but continues to have her dry, delicious, perfectly shaped prose throughout:
[from a section comparing needle materials]
Celluloid
Extremely brittle; not to be sat upon.
Aluminum
... A #6 aluminum needle has been known to furnish an excellent emergency shearpin for an outboard motor. It once saved us seven miles of paddling. Then I had to spend hours re-pointing the needle on rocks, having nobly, but foolishly, offered the business end instead of the knob end for sacrifice.
[from a section on knitting styles]
Those who really knit left-handed, or backwards, take their stitches from the right needle onto the left, instead of the other way around. They appear to believe that because they write left-handed they should knit left-handed too. They forget that left-handed writing is legible to everybody, while watching backwards knitting leaves the observer feeling as if she had to decide whether to put the clock backwards or forwards in Spring, unaided by mnemonics, and at the same time patting her head with one hand and rubbing her stomach with the other, and then reversing matters.
And so on. I don't read her for knitting tips but because I enjoy spending mental time with her. That said, the knitting tips are very good. She would like to teach every knitter how to achieve the state achieved by the good cook, in which you can look at your materials, decide what you want to make, and buckle down to make it without particular referral to instructions. You ought to be able to decide for yourself, is her mantra, and if you really know the theory behind what you are doing, you can really do whatever you like. I do not much enjoy the garments she designed-- not my aesthetic-- but her gently acerbic insistence that I not tie myself to the instructions but think about why has been one of the most useful things I have found in a knitting writer. This particular book is fairly highly concentrated on tips and less on biography; I would say it is for the intermediate knitter, as if you don't actually know how to make a knit stitch and a purl stitch I don't think you could learn it here, and a lot of the percentages and specific advice-bits go over my head and will, I expect, unless I put them into direct practice.
The nice thing is, though, that if I try making an Elizabeth Zimmermann sweater it doesn't have to look anything like one of hers, and I suspect she'd prefer that it didn't. I admire that in a designer.
This catches me up-- I read this book this morning-- so these posts will go back to being one a day.
Elizabeth Zimmermann is the great writer to have come out of knitting books. I wish I could remember how I found her. I would almost recommend her work to the person uninterested in knitting, and would recommend it to people who are not knitters but not actively opposed to it. You can always skim the really technical bits. This one has less memoir than several of her others do, but continues to have her dry, delicious, perfectly shaped prose throughout:
[from a section comparing needle materials]
Celluloid
Extremely brittle; not to be sat upon.
Aluminum
... A #6 aluminum needle has been known to furnish an excellent emergency shearpin for an outboard motor. It once saved us seven miles of paddling. Then I had to spend hours re-pointing the needle on rocks, having nobly, but foolishly, offered the business end instead of the knob end for sacrifice.
[from a section on knitting styles]
Those who really knit left-handed, or backwards, take their stitches from the right needle onto the left, instead of the other way around. They appear to believe that because they write left-handed they should knit left-handed too. They forget that left-handed writing is legible to everybody, while watching backwards knitting leaves the observer feeling as if she had to decide whether to put the clock backwards or forwards in Spring, unaided by mnemonics, and at the same time patting her head with one hand and rubbing her stomach with the other, and then reversing matters.
And so on. I don't read her for knitting tips but because I enjoy spending mental time with her. That said, the knitting tips are very good. She would like to teach every knitter how to achieve the state achieved by the good cook, in which you can look at your materials, decide what you want to make, and buckle down to make it without particular referral to instructions. You ought to be able to decide for yourself, is her mantra, and if you really know the theory behind what you are doing, you can really do whatever you like. I do not much enjoy the garments she designed-- not my aesthetic-- but her gently acerbic insistence that I not tie myself to the instructions but think about why has been one of the most useful things I have found in a knitting writer. This particular book is fairly highly concentrated on tips and less on biography; I would say it is for the intermediate knitter, as if you don't actually know how to make a knit stitch and a purl stitch I don't think you could learn it here, and a lot of the percentages and specific advice-bits go over my head and will, I expect, unless I put them into direct practice.
The nice thing is, though, that if I try making an Elizabeth Zimmermann sweater it doesn't have to look anything like one of hers, and I suspect she'd prefer that it didn't. I admire that in a designer.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 11:16 pm (UTC)(And of course I am enjoying the book reviews, possibly even more than I anticipated.)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 07:42 pm (UTC)To answer your question about the reviews in general: yes, I'm enjoying them. It's particularly fun to come across something I've read - I always enjoy hearing what friends have to say about books with which I'm familiar.
(On the other hand, I don't knit. Such is life!)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 11:00 am (UTC)I'm very much enjoying them, particularly since you read books I'd never have picked up. (I used to knit. After my second finished sweater I worked out that I don't actually enjoy _wearing_ knitwear, which makes it kind of pointless.)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 05:10 pm (UTC)I don't particularly enjoy wearing knitwear either, but fortunately I have a never-ending list of people I would like to give presents. None of them have yet come to the point of protesting.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 03:38 am (UTC)Immensely.
Nine
I concur with nineweaving
Date: 2010-09-18 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 04:22 am (UTC)Yes, and I don't even slightly knit.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 05:35 pm (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 07:41 pm (UTC)I don't knit, but lately I've found that books about one art form can still give valuable advice for others, after the fashion of The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars.