Blog #45 Knitting Around with EZ: Growing Up a Knitter
Dear Knitter,
In our October newsletter, we discuss our favorite cardigan patterns, including my Throwback Cardigan. The design was inspired by a sweater my mother (Elizabeth Zimmermann) made for me when I was a teenager (photo below). I remember fondly many of the garments she knitted for me, which inspired my family to ask me about my own knitting history and the garments I knitted during my childhood. In honor of the new release of the updated edition of Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmermann and her autobiographical Digressions within the book, I've written a Digression of my own about my knitting history.
Left Image: Throwback Cardigan Right Image: This photo was in the local Findley, Maine newspaper when my sister Lloie and I were ski-bums @ Sugarloaf Mountain. EZ knitted both my plain raglan cardigan, and Lloie’s all-over patterned Norwegian sweater - which was the prototype from EZ’s 12-week PBS-tv series. Yes, both of us are "smoking beastly cigarettes” as EZ always referred to it; it was the ‘60s.
Digression: Growing Up a Knitter by Meg Swansen
Learning to Knit: I remember when my mother taught me How to Knit. We were on the enclosed back porch in New Hope PA, overlooking the Delaware River. Mama was sitting sideways on a chair, and I stood beside her. She had given me her knitting and put her arms around me to guide my hands through the moves. I’m not sure if she recited "slip, over, under, off”, as she had been taught by her mother; but likely she did. I have no recollection of any follow-up…did she then set me up with cast-on stitches to knit a square? I know not.
Knitting a Scarf for Auntie Pete: The next memory is from Shorewood in Wisconsin when I was about 7 or 8. I must have been pestering my mother about having nothing to do, so she set me up to knit a scarf for Auntie Pete (who lovingly made and sent from England beautiful, smocked wool velour dresses for me and Lloie; one was a soft beige, the other soft gray). The scarf was about 6” wide garter stitch. I recall beginning new rows incorrectly, and inadvertently increasing. When the scarf was a suitable length (about 14-15” for the first half), Elizabeth instructed me how to work a series of short rows to form a horseshoe around the neck-back. I’m sure I didn’t know what I was doing, I merely did what I was told, which must have meant the Mary Thomas instruction to slip the first stitch on the way back from a short row. After the Short Rows came another laborious 14-15” for the second half. The scarf was eventually completed and shipped to Great Britain. DEAR Auntie Pete (actually named Gwendolyn). Below is a photo of her from the new Knitting Around with Baby Betty and Merrilegs the donkey. Read more about EZs Aunts and her knitting Auntie Pete in Knitting Around.
Knitting for Friends and a Grandmother: After this scarf, there must have been more knitting in the interim to my teenage years, but of that I have no recollection. All of my early knitting was centered around gift-giving, at least those I can recall. In high school, I knitted a Loden green cuff-to-cuff sweater for a friend of my brother, and in advance of a visit from Elizabeth’s “Mummy,” Grace Muriel I made my grandmother a cardigan. I chose 2-ply grey Sheepswool and knitted a shallow color-patterned yoke cardigan with a cornflower blue motif that was just the color of Mummy’s eyes. It fitted her well, and she wore it daily. I’m sure my mother told me how many to cast on and gave me verbal help throughout, though I do not remember actually how or when I learned to knit with two colors, assemble body and sleeves, weave underarms, or slash a cardigan down the front. How did I secure the stitches? Probably with Elizabeth’s old treadle sewing machine (at which I was quite skilled, having made myself a number of skirts and dresses during high school. Below is an image of Grace Muriel from EZs Digressions in Knitting Around.
Grace Muriel, "Mummy" to Elizabeth Zimmermann and "Mummy" as a grandmother with baby Thomas
Knitting in trade: After graduation, I went to LA to work at Lanz (Lanz of Saltzburg, which my parents’s good friend from Germany, Kurt Scharff, brought to America; photo on p 145 of Knitting Around) for a time, then ski-bummed with my sister at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. Somewhere in that period, and before I met my husband Chris, I knitted a sweater for a Milwaukee artist Bob Cody, with whom I swapped the sweater for one of his abstract paintings in blues and greens. I remember that Chris and I had it hanging in our house in New Hope, PA early in our marriage but somewhere during our moves, it vanished, like memories.
Knitting Bond with EZ: What strikes me most about my knitting life is how it seemed to evolve effortlessly and organically. Knitting was always a bond between me and mother. While I attended art school in Europe I became friends with an Icelandic student, and spent a two week school holiday with Hanna and her family in Reykjavik, where I “discovered” Unspun Icelandic and became besotted by it. I knitted myself a sweater while in Iceland, and sent a large batch back to my mum in WI. Her reaction to this unique fiber was identical to my own, and she began to import it. For the next six decades, we were the only source for this wool in America. Below, she is showing wheels of Unspun Icelandic to my new in-laws during my wedding reception! Chris and I first lived in Manhattan, and I was commissioned to knit a number of sweaters for other musicians (Gary Burton, Stan Getz, and a tie for Gene Cherico). When we moved to New Hope PA, I opened a wool shop and began to sell designs to magazines and wool companies.
Knit On with Confidence!
Meg
