I have a confession to make. I'm not ashamed, but it's not something I talk about very often. I am not a fan of the designs of Elizabeth Zimmerman.
I love her writing, absolutely. I love the way she thinks about knitting. I'm definitely a fan of her mathematical analysis, and the freedom and flexibility she encourages in changing yarns, gauge and garment size. And I adore her architectural approach to knitting.
But I've never knitted a single design of hers. I suspect that it's all about EZ herself, and how she is built. I think, from looking at her photographs that she's much taller and broader of shoulder than I am, and she's definitely not as busty.
She builds all these raglans and seamless yoke pullovers that look just horrendous on me. I just don't have the shoulders for them.
There's been a fair bit of discussion of late about the Baby Surprise Jacket in my knitterly circles. It's never really fallen from favour, this design, and it's going through a trendy phase again. (Ravelry link.)
So I figure it's time to dip my toe into the wonderous world of the EZ construction.
And so I begin, with my copy of the Opinionated Knitter, a 4mm 24 inch circular needle, and some yarn from the stash. I've got 2 full balls of 140m each of this lovely bright green mix DK -- Australian Merino from Filtes King/Needful, and about another partial ball of about 25m... 305m in total. I've been madly googling and surfing Ravelry to get a sense of how much yarn this design requires.
Seems like it's anywhere between 280m and 330m...
Now, I do have some more of this yarn in a complementary colourway, a rather fun red mix, so I could add stripes, but the thrill-seeker in me sorta wants to see if I can eke the damn thing of the yarn I have.
What do you think? Worth the gamble?
1 comment:
I think you'd probably be ok with 2-and-a-bit balls. You could probably eke it out by making the body a bit shorter - there's a bit in the instructions where you knit 10 ridges on just the middle stitches. If you're worried you'll run out when you get to that stage, you could make fewer ridges or leave them out altogether.
Post a Comment