I have been immersing myself in various Elizabeth Zimmermann books and DVDs from my library. What a delightful woman! I especially like the book Knitting Around filled with EZ’s ‘musings’. It is a book that I will most assuredly be adding to my library. I have also enjoyed the Knitting Workshop DVD. It is wonderful, but I don’t think I will make the investment. A lot of it is information I don’t need, but if I do, I can always take it from the library again.  The other DVD I have borrowed and have already ordered from Amazon is A Knitting Glossary with Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen. This DVD is excellent and just what I am looking for. Most of the excellent techniques they demonstrate will be of great benefit to me. It is a fantastic DVD and I would recommend it to everyone.

One of the methods that EZ demonstrates is continental knitting or ‘picking’. I have done this when working with more than one color yarn and it makes sense as a more efficient way to knit. I tried it while knitting the socks for Marc and it was hard with the small yarn and needles. I have recently started a Yoke sweater using Lopi wool and practiced during this. My knitting is much looser when knitting continental. I did start getting the hang of the pearl stitches while doing the ribbing. After a while though, it started feeling uncomfortable so I switched back.  Perhaps I will just start knitting a swatch just to practice and get used to Continental knitting.

Here is the Lopi Sweater I just started. Because it is a bulky wool, it is going quite fast.

And here is where i am on the socks. I am afraid I carried the colors too tight. It is really tight going around my ankle. I am going to work the second sock inside out to see if it makes a difference.