ez deconstructed

I'm a little crabby today. In knitting life some crabbiness is coming from the large numbers of baby things I've been knitting. I can't wear them and neither can the baby because she isn't born yet. This is sterile knitting. I have a baby sweater on the needles and plans for one more, and that's it for a while.

Some extra crabbiness came to me courtesy of Elizabeth Zimmerman. Although I own all of her books except for The Opinionated Knitter, I have always harbored a slight aversion to her. Now I know why. The pattern she published for this design in The Knitter's Almanac is mean and nasty. There are no other words for it except maybe stingy and mingy.

Here is the design. First of all its author doesn't bother to tell you what size this pattern makes. She only tells you to knit at a gauge of 5 stitches to the inch. She also fails to tell you what pattern to use when measuring your gauge. So I guessed and measured the gauge in stockinette stitch and got 5 stitches to the inch. I used DK weight yarn and # 7 needles; EZ gives no suggestions as to yarn weight. The result is a sweater for a gigantic baby, or perhaps, a toddler sweater. It measures 26 inches wide and 14.5 inches long.

In her verbal stinginess, Zimmerman includes this helpful instruction: "Place remaining 92 sts on needle, knitting up 4 x 7 sts at the cast-on sleeve-sts...." Of course she has never told you to place the stitches on a holder in the first place, and how do you "knit up 4 x 7 sts"? As an experienced knitter I and others like me were able to follow these obscure directions. But if you are inexperienced, run the other way. And I will point out that in 1974 when The Knitter's Almanac was published, there were well-established pattern-writing conventions that knitters expected to see in published patterns, with good reason.

So much for the knitting directions. As for the design, I call it quaint. I mean by that antique or vintage, but not in a good way. I take some of the blame for that. I liked the design in its many Ravelry incarnations, but now I see that many Ravelers did what I did not do. First, many used shades of red and purple which, for some reason, is the best color for this design. Second, many did not decrease stitches along the bottom edge as the designer instructed. The swingy look they get as a result is more modern. By decreasing the bottom and using yellowish white I got the most Victorian-y version possible of this nameless sweater.

On a positive note, I am fascinated by the one-piece construction of this garment although I fear that underarm comfort may have been sacrificed as a result. I am also grateful for the gull lace pattern. It is soothingly easy to knit and would be pretty for a scarf, wrap, or blanket.

I named my sweater Temptation after the book I listened to while knitting, The Last Temptation, a thriller by by Val McDermid. And also because I was tempted to make this sweater against my better judgment by the cleverness of its construction. Elizabeth Zimmerman missed her calling as an engineer. This sweater is going to charity. All in all I don't like it and don't want to see it again.

all about ME

No knitting to show today. I have knit about 2 inches on the bottom band of the Drama City skirt (the book is going well) and am getting ready to decrease around for the transition to stockinette. So in lieu of knitting photos, here is the first bloom in my raggedy garden. The potted plants are Martha Washington geraniums, said to bloom well in cool weather and headed for compost when it gets hot out. The plant's tag says otherwise. We'll see.Can you tell how crap the pots are from the photo? I can never find nice affordable pots. These actually aren't the worst I've seen. The next photo is crocus. I want to get some more, but you have to order from a specialist to get white, and I only want want white. It's my front garden theme: orange and white.

But enough about extraneous matters. Let's get to ME. I haven't been tagged for a meme, but I thought I'd do something like one anyway, focused on knitting habits. A short while ago Knitter's Review did a poll called "Straights or circs?" to find out what kind of needles knitters prefer. It turns out that over 56% of those responding prefer to use circular needles; only 6.9% prefer straights. I am so in the minority. I have also noticed that I disagree with the majority of vocal knitters on other aspects of knitting as well. So here is me:

• I actively dislike circular needles. I hate that whippy cable. I prefer straight needles and even double pointed needles to circs. I said earlier that I would like to try knitting socks on 2 circs., but I was kidding myself. I'll never try it.
• In line with hating circular needles, I tend to dislike tubular sweaters as well. All one piece, no seam sweaters seem barrel-like to me; seaming produces a more refined looking fit.
• Luckily I, unlike most knitters, do not hate seaming at all. I could do it all day. And it produces my finished garment which I am excited to see and wear (or use), assuming it turns out wearable.
• Also, unlike most knitters, I hate charts. My eyesight is pretty good (with glasses) but charts make me go blind. I prefer words to charts, and, while I do use charts on occasion, I have been known to translate the chart into written directions.
• I like mindless knitting to a degree. The only part of complex knitting I really like is seeing how the pattern will look. Once I have that established, I find complex patterns just as boring as simple only a lot more stressful.
• I think Elizabeth Zimmerman is over rated as a guru. She surely does have some clever ideas, some of which are definitely in my future, but I don't like her style.
• If the above dislike didn't offend you, this one is sure to. I could do without all the abbreviations knitters (and other bloggers) use. LOL strikes me as a little cutsey and DH or DD as a combination of snarky and smarmy.

Signing off now. Don't hate me because I'm opinionated.