Ski mask and... a Southpaw?

So, I'm trying to finish knitting this cute baby blanket for my friend Katie's baby, who is going to be born any second. I'm about one-fifth of the way done the blanket. Needless to say, I won't be finishing the blanket in time for the baby's birth, but I want to finish as soon as possible.

Suddenly, on Tuesday night, Zach holds up a folded bandana to his face and says, "It's going to be like 8 degrees when I go skiing with ski club on Friday. Can you knit me a wool face mask, shaped like a bandana, but with a nose hole?" WHAT?! Even if I weren't trying to knit this baby blanket... Even if I did have a pattern for a bandana-shaped face mask with nose hole... Even if I didn't have a million other things to do... How would I possibly have time to knit this thing in 2 nights? I would need to have it done by Thursday night so that he could take it with him Friday morning.

But the more we talked about it, I found myself designing it in my head, and I got excited. This could be my very first freestyle knitting project, designed by me! I threw down the baby blanket and ran up to my stash of wool. Zach and I picked out some chunky grey wool and I grabbed my size 10 needles and started right away. I never wrote down a thing, just knitted by intuition. I knitted as fast and as much as I could, by golly, here's the finished product. It's not going to win any beauty pageants, but my priority was function rather than form. (Incidentally, Zach is also wearing the HIDEOUS sweater I made him in these pictures.)

He's on his way home from the ski trip now, and texts me saying he stayed very warm, so... mission accomplished.

In other news, I have a sneaking suspicion that we're raising a Southpaw! Here are a couple pics where I caught her using her left hand.

I am really hoping that she does end up being left-handed, as left-handers tend to be extremely creative problem-solvers, and a whole bunch of other great stuff. Like her Uncle Jarrod and Aunt Kristen. :)