That’s my eight-month-old girl these days: keenly attuned to the world around her and eager to participate, investigate, manipulate, and mouth. She has an infectious laugh, a frank gaze, unshakable determination, a bottomless appetite, and a sense of humor. Yesterday she pulled off my hat, covered my face with it, then snatched it away and chortled at me — her first initiation of Peek-a-boo. Oh, and did I mention that her cheeks are both glorious and delectable?

Here she’s just waking up from a snooze during a walk at the Sandy River delta:

(And yes, a handknit in action — my mostly Selbu Modern cloche is still a favorite!)

My little lass is no longer quite such a terrible napper, either. On Friday morning she slept — hallelujah! — for two glorious hours. I felt as though I’d sprinted into the end zone of Mamadom and made the game-winning catch. As a dance of victory and thanksgiving, I sewed my Ada a perfectly adorable pair of pants, which I can’t wait to show you when the weather gets warm enough for thin cotton. (I made them too big for now, as this weather cannot be expected until the fifth of July.)

I’d like to be writing here more often to say so, but we are keeping well.

I’ve finished and gifted a stealth knit! Ravelry is fabulous in many, many ways, but it does make it tricky to knit for other knitters, which is why this is the first anyone is seeing of my take on this pretty shawl designed by my talented friend Kristen Hanley Cardozo.

One of the things I love about the way Kristen wrote this pattern is that you can essentially build your own version of the shawl based on how much yarn you have, how large you want it to be, and how ornate you’d like the edging. Kristen has included a pattern map that shows your best options in every scenario. I followed my own path and combined two of the edging possibilities in a way that wasn’t suggested — I liked the symbolism of teardrops becoming “heart leaves” for this particular friend in this moment of her life — and it worked out beautifully.

The yarn is Schaefer Anne in a teal and blue colorway. Anne is a sock yarn, and a tough one — it contains both mohair and nylon — but it softened nicely after a swim, and again, resilience with a bit of a shimmering halo seemed appropriate in this gift.

Another thing I like about this pattern is that it’s named for the leading lady of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a book I was finally able to enjoy at the end of last summer during those long and multitudinous newborn nursing sessions. I’m a sucker for knitwear inspired by literature.

(And yes, this is my beautiful star magnolia bursting into life. Let us raise a glass to certain spring!)

… to drizzly days and the sadness of new teeth (Ada’s, not mine, and I can’t see them yet, but they’re making her gums swollen and her demeanor cranky, though probably not as cranky as I’d be if my gums looked like that). This is High Road, Mary-Heather Cogar’s clever design for A Verb for Keeping Warm’s Pro-verbial Club. I’m making a present of it, but I might make another for myself. The Metamorphosis is delicious yarn and well suited to small shawls: the silk content gives it a faintly grippy hand that it helps it stay put better than my all-merino neckerchiefs. It was a quick knit — or would have been if I hadn’t made mistakes I don’t understand because I was too darn tired and I still am — and the dry desert colors are everything my home front isn’t at the moment. So even if they’re not my colors, they’ve brought me some cheer. Thanks, Kristine and Mary-Heather!

How about some knitting actually done by me? Yes, it’s baby knitting, and while I’m hankering to work on some adult garments, there are still a fair number of mini-knits on my needles that need attention if they’re ever going to fit anyone of this generation. Plus I’m trying to stay ahead of my daughter’s growth curve and finish some things she can wear next fall. This new sweater would fit that category, except that it isn’t for her:

This is Rufus, from Kristen Rengren’s Vintage Baby Knits, finished at last for my friend Leigh’s little boy or girl. It’s more or less Rufus, anyway. I checked the book out of the library and had to return it long before I had finished, but the stitch pattern wasn’t difficult to memorize and I can produce a raglan cardi without directions. Now that I’m looking at other Rufuses on Ravelry, I see I imagined the shawl collar, but doesn’t it look just right for this professorial little sweater? I made mine by keeping the original number of stitches for each front — I did the raglan decreases, but at the same time I added new stitches right next to them and took them into the garter stitch portion for the collar. I also worked the sweater all at once rather than in pieces. However, I did note that the pattern called for a smaller needle in the garter stitch button bands, and while you might not think a quarter of a millimeter would affect the outcome much, garter has a different row gauge than the pattern stitch and I suspect you’d get rather loose, wavy button bands if you disregarded this suggestion. No one likes a wavy button band. So I worked the body on a US #5 needle, letting the bands hang out on a #4. When I came to those stitches I worked them on their own needle — just as you’d do if you were using two circulars to knit in the round.

Cute buttons, right? I thought they were appropriate, given that this baby’s last name will be Wood. The yarn is Imperial Stock Ranch Tracie in the color “Quail.” Great stuff. It’s sold as sock yarn, but I think it’s far too softly spun to hold up to foot wear. Good for baby things, though! It isn’t superwash, but this mom’s a knitter who knows what to do with wool. And I’ve found that baby sweaters made of good wool are remarkably drool resistant. I rarely do a full immersion of Ada’s sweaters; a quick squeeze of the slobber zone in lukewarm water now and then has been enough to keep them looking and smelling presentable.

I may need to make another of these for Ada. I realized as I was knitting it that it’s an awful lot like my Amanda. Matching mother-daughter sweaters? That’s only going to be cute for a couple of years. Better work that while we can, right?

Whew, two posts in two days! Didn’t think I had it in me, did you?