It's appleseason which means it's also penknife season[1]; here's mine:
I think the Opinel no. 8 is the ideal EDC knife, but if you have child-sized hands the no. 6 would be Excellent for you. It comes in stainless or carbon for choose your own maintenance path[2]. It's a good size, has a simple locking mechanism that keeps it closed as well as open (I absolutely have gotten nicks from blades that don't do this!), and ages extremely gracefully.
This is actually my second one. My first I bought as, idk, a freshman in college? and lost roughly four years later. I looked all over, broke down and bought a new one (goodbye aged character)... two years later our friends moved and in the process discovered my knife inside their couch! It's a knife that comes back, folks.[3]
not that I only carry a knife around this time of year, but I do use it significantly more often ↩︎
mine is carbon, as can be seen from the irregular patina from fruit juice over the years; I find it easy to care for and have only oiled the blade maybe once or twice. (the handle probably about every other year; food grade mineral oil for either oiling.) Just gotta make sure you dry it and/or flick all water drops off before air drying and then closing ↩︎
the old one is a garden knife now; much grubbier and probably needs a sharpening but still going strong ↩︎