I’m having a lovely time making my February Baby (cardigan) in June. Its a fast knit. Perhaps its not a two-hour project, as I wildly speculated in my last post, but it is still pretty darn fast. Baby clothes in worsted weight seem to just fly on the needles don’t they?

That is of course because baby clothes are so tiny. Technically a baby sweater is about… one and a half hats. Maybe not even that. But its not one and half hats. Its clothing. And when you are a third of the way through a sweater and its only the second day of that project, you feel like a boss knitter.

The other fun part of this project is that its an Elizabeth Zimmermann design. What can I say, I’m a big fan of her work. When I work one of her patterns for the first time I nearly always think: “Huh! That’s a nifty construction.” I’m thinking that with this baby cardigan. You make the yoke, then a little bit of the body and move on to knitting the sleeves. That’s what I’m on right now, the first sleeve. Yes, its worked flat and gets sewn up at the end. The construction manages to be both clever and very simple. I like that.

Also, I’m reading (re-reading actually) Knitter’s Almanac, the book that the pattern is published in as I knit. EZ’s books are great for providing some entertaining reading. She is chatty and witty and opinionated (but in an adorable sort of way). In the chapter that includes the February Baby cardigan is a lengthy diatribe against the use of acrylic yarn in baby knits. EZ thinks all baby things should be made in wool. Having read all of her books, I can confidently say that EZ only worked in wool and didn’t think much of other fibers.

I spent a good 5 minutes explaining to Ms. Zimmermann that I was working in acrylic and that I was not at all sorry about it. I talked to her in my head. Not out loud. Talking to people who aren’t actually there out loud is a good way to find yourself on subscription happy pills. But EZ’s writing is like that, easy and conversational and it makes you feel like she is sitting there with her and the two of you are knitting. So sometimes I find myself talking to her.

Anyway, I told Ms. Zimmermann that acrylics have come a long way in the last 20 years. I told her that modern moms have even less time for household chores then they use to. I told her that wool is kind of pricey and I only give the good stuff to my favorite people. And its coming out like this: