Elizabeth, Sheila and I make a sweater

I've read much of Elizabeth Zimmermann's work recently, and I have been wanting to make a sweater for quite a while, but I was kind of scared...the time, the amount of yarn, the possibility of never finishing it. Well, EZ's Seamless Yoke Sweater seemed simple enough, and I had enough yarn on hand to make a child-sized one, so I decided to go for it. I figure the worst thing that could happen is it comes out terribly and winds up being returned to it's previous yarn-ball state, and I will have learned something in the process. I got out my Knitting Around book and cast on.

The first Christmas after I had learned to knit, my mother gave me Traditional Scandinavian Knitting by Sheila MacGregor as a gift. As a beginner, it just evaded me....the pictures were interesting, but I had no idea how to translate the text into actual knitting. Now that I've gotten the hang of knitting, I love that book, and I found some color patterns from traditional Scandinavian garments to work into my sweater.

Look!


Once I finish those snowflakes I will be to the first yoke increase. It actually is starting to look like a sweater. (I took photos when it was two sleeves and a body, but who wants to read a blog post about 3 knitted tubes?)

I'm trying my hardest to learn the 2-handed color knitting technique. I've read it in books, and I've watched it on the Knitting Workshop video, but still it evades me. I was quite entertaining yesterday, sitting in a bookstore trying to knit in public without swearing out loud, so I kept saying "Shhhhhhhh" and "FFFFFFF". It's a little wonky, but I'm trying to be gentle with myself, it's only my first try:














Also this weekend, I fell down in the yarn shop and broke my "yarn diet." This skein of Manos Del Uruguay just wouldn't let me leave it on the shelf. It first told me it wanted to be fingerless gloves, but it has changed it's mind and now wants to be a hat, I think. Although it was probably not the most fiscally prudent purchase, it makes for good Yarn Pr0n :)