How to zip all EXCEPT a few, specified directories?

Question

I want to use zip on most of the directories in my home directories but there are a few specific directories (let's call them dir1 and dir2) with contents that I do not want zip to add to my subsequent archive file. I tried

zip foo.zip ./* -x@exclude.lst

with exclude.lst containing:

./dir1/*
./dir2/*

but zip still is including the contents of those directories. How can I have zip skip the contents of those specific directories?

Answer 1

I tried this using just:

dir1/*

in the file and found that dir2/ gets included but dir1/ and things under it don't.