Elizabeth Zimmermann Quotes

Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either.

There is no right way to knit; there is no wrong way to knit. So if anybody kindly tells you that what you are doing is "wrong," don't take umbrage; they mean well. Smile submissively, and listen, keeping your disagreement on an entirely mental level. They may be right, in this particular case, and even if not, they may drop off pieces of information which will come in very handy if you file them away carefully in your brain for future reference.

For people allergic to wool, one's heart can only bleed.

Knit on with confidence and hope through all crises.

Now, let us all take a deep breath and forge on into the future; knitting at the ready.

Really, all you need to become a good knitter are wool, needles, hands, and slightly below-average intelligence. Of course superior intelligence, such as yours and mine, is an advantage.

What? You can't knit in the dark? Stuff and nonsense; anybody can. Shut your eyes. Knit one stitch. Open your eyes and look at the stitch; it's all right. Shut your eyes and knit two stitches. Open them. Shut them. Knit three stitches. Falling off a log is no comparison.

Really, handknitting is a dreamy activity, built into many people's thumbs and fingers by genes already there, itching to display their skills and achievement possibilities.

Now comes what I perhaps inflatedly call my philosophy of knitting. Like many philosophies, it is hard to express in a few words. Its main tenets are enjoyment and satisfaction, accompanied by thrift, inventiveness, an appearance of industry, and, above all, resourcefulness.

One tends to give one's fingers too little credit for their own good sense.

One un-vents something; one unearths it; one digs it up; one runs it down in whatever recesses of the eternal consciousness it has gone to ground.

(knitting while on a motorcycle) "For several years she knitted in secret (my father would not approve; she was to concentrate on motorcycling and LEAN into the curves, etc), and used a small circular needle (socks and mittens) in order to keep the knitting in her pocket until they were under way; then she leaned back slightly so Gaffer couldn't feel the movement of her hands. On the interstate one day, they were slowly passing a semi and my father happened to see the truck driver laugh and point out my mother's knitting to his passenger. Whoops-

Knitting is formed by a series of loops pulled through loops to the end of time or to 'desired length'. By picking up loops and working in the opposite direction you are really picking up the concavities between the loops, and it is sheer unexpected witchcraft that stocking stitch and garter stitch will permit such an anomaly. Be grateful for this and don't expect anymore.

I can knit. I knit all year, day in, day out. It is my passion, and I rarely knit the same thing twice the same way.

Pass by the synthetic yarn department, then, with your nose in the air. Should a clerk come out with the remark that All Young Mothers In This Day and Age (why can't they save their breath and say "now"?) insist on a yarn which can be machine-washed and machine-dried, come back at her with the reply that one day, you suppose, they will develop a baby that can be machine-washed and -dried.

I know that spinning sets me in a trance; it soothes me and charges my batteries at the same time. When times are tough I sit down to spin during the news-broadcasts, with therapeutic results.