Elizabeth Zimmermann | ClassicCableKnits

January 20th, 2011

Making Do & Mending

by Christina

Don’t you love the old WWII sayings? “Make Do and Mend” is one of my favorites. It came to mind this week as I was wanting to cast on for another cardigan. Just as I was about to commit to the new sweater I remembered… stop… I need to make do.

Do you remember the lovely cardigan I made for my Knitting Zimmermann project last year?

I never put buttons or button holes on it because I didn’t know if I wanted to do buttons or a zipper.

I realized I wasn’t wearing the cardigan as much I as should because it didn’t have any buttons or zipper. So I had to rectify the problem.

I decided to opt for the buttons because that is what I had in the house. I used an Elizabeth Zimmermann technique – applied i-cord to the existing buttonband and skipped attaching the i-cord where I wanted the button holes.

I think it worked beautifully.

I put 12 button holes on the cardigan! That’s a lot. But I hate a cardi that gapes or hangs open.

But that also meant that purchasing nice buttons would be expensive. And you all know how much buttons can be. I was looking at $24 – $36 just for buttons!

I had to find a way of making do.

So I raided my vintage button collection. I have a nice collection of just white buttons.

I think it looks lovely!

AND.. the best thing is, I LOVE wearing it now that it has buttons!

How are you all making do and mending during these hard times?

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November 26th, 2010

Elizabethan

by Christina

Many of you will remember that at the beginning of this year I started out on a crazy task of knitting my way through Elizabeth Zimmermann’s book, Knitting Around. I’ve been slowly blogging about it over on Knitting Zimmermann.

This past summer, when I was in the middle of a huge amount of garter stitch projects (Elizabeth’s favorite stitch) I got the idea for a shawl and decided to design it in honor of her 100th birthday, which was August 9, 2010.

As many of you know, my summer was absolutely insane, and the fall slowly turned into insanity as well.

So, here we are, at the end of November, and I finally published “Elizabethan.”

You can read a little more about it and purchase it on Ravelry.

One thing I must say: I used Isager Alpaca 2 and it is heavenly. The end result is a shawl that is lusicously full of drape and exquisitely soft. If you can, find Isager Alpaca 2 to knit it out of! In other words: it’s too good to substitute!

$5.00