Thank you to everyone who’s signed on to test Winter Garden! I’m very excited to see some versions of this little dress take shape out in the world. I still don’t have anyone firmly committed to the largest (6/7) size, so if you’d like to take a whack at it, please let me know. After all the hours I logged last week coaxing the draft to life, it was a pure pleasure to close the computer and head for the woods this weekend.

We piled into the new family wagon and drove up the Columbia Gorge to hike Wahclella Falls with friends. The drive itself is one of the most beautiful stretches of interstate in the country — in fact I feel a twinge of guilt as a human being for having plowed a highway right up the middle of that splendor each time I travel that way. And this was a prime Oregon autumn day: maple leaves beginning to splotch yellow and brown, southbound sun casting the grasses in platinum, river licking chilly at the shaking alders, waterfalls in every trajectory from leap to piddle down the fir-clad cliffs.

And then the hike itself, the perfect scale for adventurous three-year-olds.

Jolly wore his new jacket.

Ada climbed everything. She is suddenly fearless, though not reckless.

(When in doubt, help your friend into the cave first.)

(And don’t attempt family portraits before lunch.)

First woolly bears of the season!

And now back to the rain. Nothing wrong with some knitting weather, though. I’ve got a mountain to scale with this 4/5 sample of Winter Garden for Ada. I’d love to have it ready by Thanksgiving…