Books about knitting?

[jackandahat]

What are your favourite books about knitting? Not pattern books, but books talking about knitting - things like Yarn Harlot's books or It's My Party And I'll Knit If I Want To.

What do you like about them?

Any you'd say to avoid? (I know some of that is going to be personal taste, but I'm interested to know why.)

Comments

[alexbayleaf]

Another vote for Elizabeth Zimmerman. They are my comfort reading. Yes, they contain patterns, but the patterns usually go something like this (I don't have a copy handy so can't quote directly, but you'll get the gist):

One summer my husband and I went fishing. He was in charge of the small boat, the rods and bait and so on, and I was in charge of sitting comfortably, eating sandwiches, and knitting. It being the height of July, I couldn't make anything substantial, but a hat would answer admirably. Having only one type of wool to hand -- a two ply sheep's wool in a lovely shade of brown -- that is what I used, and you can do likewise if you have some available.

Cast on as many stitches as you need, according to the size of your head. Usually about a hundred, but it doesn't matter much, because if the hat doesn't fit you, it will fit somebody. You'll need some ribbing or garter stitch to stop the edge of the hat rolling up, unless you like the edge rolling, in which case knit away! Otherwise, try this easy little border.

[A line or two of actual knitting pattern follows.]

If you mess it up, have a cup of tea. If you're in a boat in the middle of a lake, it would be well to pack a thermos in advance, for you are absolutely sure to run into some kind of trouble along the way, and there is no better remedy than tea and a little genteel swearing, before trying to fix your mistake.

Speaking of mistakes, I never rip back my knitting if I can help it. Here's a trick to fix a small mistake without having to undo all that hard work. You'll need a crochet hook of an appropriate size, and some sharp scissors...

(And then, several pages later, having detoured via a story of her time as a governess to some sort of Norwegian royalty's kids and/or the time she and her husband escaped from the Nazis and/or something about living in a tiny little tenement apartment in New York before moving to the Wisconsin schoolhouse where they eventually settled and/or adorable photos of early 20th century children in Christopher-Robin-like knitwear, there'll actually be a finished hat, which will surprisingly have taught you all the skills you need to knit the strange origami-like sweater in the next chapter.)

If I had to pick one of her books that was the least readable as a non-pattern book, it might be Knitting Without Tears or the Knitter's Almanac, but I am loath to disrecommend even those, because they are still full of all kinds of lovely stories and advice, even if they do have a lot of patterns too.

[alexbayleaf]

Also, I found this excellent page of EZ quotes which you might enjoy:

http://bookworm-silkworm.blogspot.com/2008/08/in-her-words-20-quotes-from-elizabeth.html

[frotz]

I was going to go on and on about EZ until I saw this, which is almost exactly what I was going to write! (Except that I love Knitting Without Tears as a non-pattern book; there's just so much inspiration and fun in it! Much less so the Almanac.)

Note however that everyone replying to this thread to date has dropped the last letter of Elizabeth Zimmermann's last name. (They're sometimes miscatalogued as well, just to add to the fun.)

Knit Picks has most of them and is a very good deal when one of their "40% off all books" sales comes around, at least if you live someplace they'll ship.