14 Quotes by Elizabeth Zimmermann

Now comes what I perhaps inflatedly call my philosophy of knitting. Like many philosophies, it is hard to express in a few words. Its main tenets are enjoyment and satisfaction, accompanied by thrift, inventiveness, an appearance of industry, and, above all, resourcefulness.

Really, handknitting is a dreamy activity, built into many people’s thumbs and fingers by genes already there, itching to display their skills and achievement possibilities.

I am a knitting fool. It’s a quiet pastime, and a productive one. It enables one to join in the conversation or switch one’s brain off, according to the interest or the excruciating dullness of what is being discussed. And the product does keep people warm and comfortable.

One un-vents something; one unearths it; one digs it up; one runs it down in whatever recesses of the eternal consciousness it has gone to ground.

For people allergic to wool, one’s heart can only bleed.