Friday 19 January 2007

Elizabeth Zimmermann

My Elizabeth Zimmermann books have arrived! I hardly ever buy new books, usually relying on the library for my knitting fixes. My mum sends money for birthdays and I had been reading the Zimmermania blog
http://zimmermaniacs.blogspot.com/
so I decided to treat myself to Elizabeth’s five books - Knitting Workshop, Knitting without Tears, The Opinionated Knitter, Knitting Around and Knitter’s Almanac. At first glance, I see that the content of the books overlap somewhat, but I do love her style of writing and her practical attitude.

There is one point on which we don’t agree, however. She always used wool and thought synthetics a poor substitute. She may be right about that (and I must confess to a certain amount of envy when watching my friends experiment with felting) however I’m a vegan and am committed to living without animal products. I don’t eat them and I don’t wear them. So I use cotton, or rayon, or acrylic, or nylon, and have yet to try yarns made from soy, corn or banana fibre. I could not in good conscience use wool. If you want to know why, don't ask me - take a look at this site - http://www.savethesheep.com/

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