EZ's 3D Vision

It was a weekend of visitors and house viewings. In-between chatting and cleaning and getting out of the house so people could look, I knit. Knitting was less messy than sewing and easier to pick up and put down. You'll notice that my project morphed. After one repeat of the yarn stripes, a garter stitch scarf seemed endlessly boring so I knit Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket instead.

The jacket is knit in one piece. Some people "get it' right away like the friend who was here for the weekend. When I asked her what she thought I was knitting she said, it must be a sweater because here's the sleeve and she was right. Other people remain confused all the way to the very end when they're trying to figure out which way to flip the edges to transform the organic shape above into the sweater below.

The ability to see in this way is called three-dimensional vision. Mine is pretty good but not nearly as good as Elizabeth Zimmerman's, the woman who designed this sweater in 1968. I'm intrigued with how her mind worked and would have loved the opportunity to sit down and chat with her. I think it would have been a challenging and inspiring conversation especially since Elizabeth is credited with revolutionizing the modern practice of knitting. That's quite a reputation.

Now that I've knit the pattern, I can see all sorts of ways to manipulate the colors and stripes within the design only I doubt I will because - for the most part - I think it's ugly. Even mine. The yarn was prettier knit into the shorter rows with larger pooled sections of color on the scarf than it is knit into the longer rows with minimal pooling of the jacket. Something similar could be said of almost all the renditions I've seen.

The only versions that have appealed to me are those knit with multi-colored yarns that do NOT  have long colorways or the ones where color has been carefully managed like the yellow and white striped one further down on this page at the Schoolhouse Press site. I intend to add a collar to mine - in the purple-ish color - as well as cuffs. The collar will give it more appeal and the cuffs will balance the garment better. As it is now, the sleeves seem disproportionate. If you look at that page above, you can see that they're short on the baby modelling.

Howard has today off and Kyle works at noon so it's an in and out day. The house is clean. I don't need to do that so I may just knit again. We'll see. I would really like to get to JoAnna's bag but not with interruptions. It's too hard to sew like that especially when the thinking and forming part.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - the sharing of great minds