Elizabeth Lloyd-Jones Zimmermann; Knitting Innovator

Elizabeth Lloyd-Jones Zimmermann, 89, designer of knitwear who devised a mathematical formula for figuring the proportions of sweaters. A knitter since her childhood in Devon, England, Zimmermann wrote four books, created the first knitting camp in the United States and started a knitting newsletter. She had studied art in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany, where she earned pocket money by selling sweaters she designed and made. With her new husband, brewer Arnold Zimmermann, she immigrated to New York and moved around the United States before settling in Wisconsin. After spending time with local knitters, she began submitting her own designs for Norwegian-pattern sweaters to Woman’s Day magazine in 1955. Four years later she started her own publication. Soon she was selling knitting publications and supplies under the name Schoolhouse Press, after the remodeled school in which she and her husband raised their three children. Zimmermann hosted a knitting program shown on several public television stations and in 1974 began her knitting camp with the help of the University of Wisconsin. Considered an engineer as well as an artist, Zimmermann came up with a mathematical formula for constructing sweaters in the round (as opposed to flat pieces sewn together) and calculating proportions based on the number of stitches per inch. Her work helped knitters create sweaters and other garments that not only looked good but also fit. On Nov. 30 in Marshfield, Wis.