Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

As it is a new year, I've been cleaning up the house, putting away the old, and starting new projects. The stack of unread knitting books is embarrassing. I used to be able to keep up! Just before Christmas I purchased Kate Davies new book, Yokes . As usual, this is one of those purchases where I innocently walked into The Whole Nine Yarns and Jenna the Yarn Pimp thrust the new book in front of me, suggesting I must have this now. As you might guess, Jenna is very often correct about this sort of thing. Kate Davies holds a doctorate in Eighteenth Century studies. For those of us with too much background in academia, this book is a wonderful treat. (Full disclosure, both Jenna and I have degrees in Art History. Just for the record, so does Franklin Habit. The world of knitting is surprisingly well-populated with defrocked art historians.) Yokes opens with seven short chapters exploring the history and tradition of yoke sweaters in the North Atlantic. Some of these chapters are...

Remember that beautiful snowfall a couple months ago? Well, my North Georgia Knitting Guild presentation was supposed to be the following evening. As the name implies, that guild meets north of the city. It was a wee bit cooler there and the snow a bit heavier, so the meeting was cancelled. I'll be doing this presentation at the April meeting instead. In the meantime, I thought I'd post most of it here. This is a series of illustrated examples of how to make sweaters without knitting separate flat pieces that are then sewn together. My first example is a yoke sweater. This particular yoke sweater I knit maybe five years ago for my gaming friend Karen. Karen was going to an anime convention and wanted to dress as a particular character, Yukari. I started with a picture of the character and a little knowledge about yoke sweaters. (For more reference on this type of sweater construction, read Elizabeth Zimmermann Knitting Without Tears , reprinted 1995 or Susan Mills & Norah G...