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My gift for you, is an excerpt from the book "Little Big" by John Crowley. It is a story of several generations of a family that have a strong (not always welcomed) connection to the fairy world. One of the family's traditions is to write letters to Santa on Christmas Eve. By burning them in the fireplace the smoke carries the messages to Santa... In the expectant, crackling afternoon of that Eve of Ice Daily Alice drew her knees up within a huge armchair and used a folded checkerboard resting on her knees for a desk. "Dear Santa," she wrote, " Please bring me a new hot-water bottle, any color but that pink that looks like boiled meat, a jade ring like the one my Great-aunt Cloud has, for the right middle finger." She thought. She watched the snow fall on the gray world, still just visible as day died. "A quilted robe," she wrote, "one that comes down to my feet. A pair of fuzzy slippers. I would like this baby to be easier than the other two to have. The other stuff is not so important if you could manage that. Ribbon candy is nice, and you can't find it anywhere anymore. Thanking you in advance, Alice Barnable (the older sister)". Since childhood she had always added that, to avoid confusion. She hesitated over the tiny blue notepaper nearly filled with these few desires. "P.S. If you could bring my sister and my husband back from wherever it is they've gone off together I would be more grateful than I could say. ADB" She folded this absently. Her father's typewriter could be heard in the strange snow-silence. Cloud, cheek in hand wrote with the stub of a pencil at the drum-table, her eyes moist, perhaps with tears, though her eyes often seemed bedimmed lately; old age only, probably. Alice rested her head back against the chair's soft breast, looking upward. Above her, Smoky, charged with rum-tea sat down in the imaginary study to begin his letter. He spoiled one sheet because the rickety writing-table there rocked beneath his careful pen; he shimmed the leg with a matchbook and began again. "My dear Santa, First of all it's only right that I explain about last year's wish. I won't excuse myself by sayng I was a little drunk, though I was, and I am (it's getting to be a Christmas habit, as everything about Christmas gets to be a habit, but you know all about that). Anyway, if I shocked you or strained your powers by such a request I'm sorry;(I mean I assume) it's not in your power to give one person to another, but the fact is my wish was granted. Maybe only because I wanted it then more than anything, and what you want so much you're just likely to get. So I don't know whether to thank you or not. I mean I don't know whether you're responsible; and I don't know whether I'm grateful." He chewed the end of his pen for a moment, thinking of last Christmas morning when he had gone into Sophie's room to wake her, so early (Tacey wouldn't wait) that blank nighttime still ruled the windows. He wondered if he should relate the story. He'd never told anyone else, and the deep privacy of this about to be cremated letter tempted him to confidences. But no. It was true what Doc had said, that Christmas succeeds Christmas rather than the days it follows. That had become apparent to Smoky in the last few days. Not because of the repeated ritual, the tree sledded home, the antique ornaments lovingly brought out, the Druid greenery hung on the lintels. It was only since last Christmas that all that had become imbued for him with dense emotion, an emotion having nothing to do with Yuletide, a day which for him as a child had had nothing like the fascination of Hallowe'en, the bunt and smoky night. Yet he saw that it was an emotion that would cover him now, as with snow, each time this season came. She was the cause, not he to whom he wrote. "Anyway," he began again, " my desires this year are a little clouded. I would like one of those instruments you use to sharpen the blades of an old-fashioned lawn mower. I would like the missing volume of Gibbon(Vol.II) which somebody's apparently taken out to use as a doorstop or something and lost." He thought of listing publisher and date, but a feeling of futility and silence came over him, drifting deep. "Santa," he wrote, "I would like to be one person only, not a whole crowd of them, half of them always trying to turn their backs and run whenever somebody"--Sophie, he meant, Alice, Cloud, Doc, Mother; Alice most of all --"looks at me. I want to be brave and honest and shoulder my burdens. I don't want to leave myself out while a bunch of slyboots figments do my living for me." He stopped, seeing he was growing unintelligible. He hesitated over the complimentary close; he thought of using "Yours as ever," but thought that might sound ironic or sneering, and at last wrote only "Yours&c.," as his father always had, which then seemed ambiguous and cool; what the hell anyway; and he signed it: Evan S. Barnable. Down in the study they had gathered with eggnog and their letters. Doc had his folded like true correspondence, its backside pimpled with hard-struck punctuation; Mother's was torn from a brown bag, like a shopping list. The fire took them all, though -- rejecting only Lily's at first, who tried with a shriek to throw it in the fire's mouth, you can't really throw a piece of paper, she'd learn that as she grew in grace and wisdom--and Tacey insisted they go out to see. Smoky took her by the hand, and lifted Lily onto his shoulder, and they went out into the snowfall made spectral by the house's lights to watch the smoke go away, melting the falling snowflakes as it rose. When he received these communications, Santa drew the claws of his spectacles from behind his ears and pressed the sore place on the bridge of his nose with thumb and finger. What was it they expected him to do with these? A shotgun, a bear, snowshoes, some pretty things and some useful: well, all right. But for the rest of it...He just didn't know what people were thinking anymore. But it was growing late; if they, or anyone else, were disappointed in him tomorrow, it wouldn't be the first time. He took his furred hat from its peg and drew on his gloves. He went out, already unaccountably weary though the journey had not even begun, into the multicolored arctic waste beneath a decillion stars, whose near brilliance seemed to chime, even as the harness of his reindeer chimed when they raised their shaggy heads at his approach, and as the eternal snow chimed too when he trod it with his booted feet. |
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tuesday :: awhile back i followed max's enjoyment of peace fleece to camilla farm and now i'm enjoying some of my very own. soon as there is room in my stash closet i will fill it with much more of this. |
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my first attempt with sarah peasley's free pattern, in newborn size, took less than one skein of elann's organic cotton. i know there are a dozen more of these hats in me, in various sizes. ever since it got chilly, i've been craving to be wrapped in organic cotton. my 'want to do' list is so full it seems like it might be warming up again before i get to it, but its a part of my stash i am so glad to have. there is still some available. this hat is the vicuna color and took on the lightest gold color after washing. very pretty. there is to be a new baby in our family this christmas week. this hat is meant for him. i've discovered that i am about the only knitting relative this baby will have, so all the more fun for me : ) my first fun wish is to make a hooded sweatshirt for him in organic cotton. max, karen, and i have our needles poised for the 26th start of knitting the 'astrid' poncho pullover from the best of lopi book. max is planning to try it top down, i'm wanting to skip the rib and use an i cord edge instead...none of us mind that we are the smallest knit along in blogging history, all the more cookies for us : ) and all the more excuse to try it more than once. |
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from "The Prolific Knitting Machine" by Catherine Cartwright-Jones
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i am enjoying this book alot, it is full of common sense, measurements, and humor(finest ingredient) and i am enjoying my knitting machine. its brand name is silver reed, and the first name i thought of for the machine was long john silver, tho (s)he doesn't seem piratey, more like cozy long johns...i knitted scarf #3 yesterday, 500+ rows on long john(35 minutes : ), then a whole afternoon of handknitting an i cord edge around it...not finished yet. am also getting a kick out of my new uploading method which includes typing commands. the mac version of ftp i used was fetch, which has a running puppy icon as the files load. i can still use him to bring things down to imac, but he runs his little heart out trying to put things up. so for the 2nd time its cd www & mput * |
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since the first scarf came out too short i went a bit overboard on scarf 2, tho with the idea that it could be a hooded scarf. there are 700 knitting machine rows ...5 skeins of cascade 220..and the length came out perfect, but the width was too much and the fabric wouldn't fold smoothly from hood to scarf. i find i'm not even upset about the loss of all that wool, because it isn't lost. i have imaginings of sewing and embroidering with cut out felt...mola like designs.  another problem is the curling of the edges, this hadn't happened on smaller samples. the edge curls and felts itself together, which isn't unpleasant to look at, but will make a problem when i try to sew pieces together, which was how i had imagined making the coat. |
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in computer woes, there has been no fix, but this work around where i can send pictures out through karly's computer. i am still sitting here at my desk, with the i-mac, but sneaking out the photos through karly's unix system. well, maybe, we are testing this theory out n-o-w- |
beginning December 26
:: lopi-along with ::
:: just now knitting ::
mittens
lucy neatby's paradoxical mitten
available from threadbear
for meadow
in silky
wool
(sidetracked by love of karly's sweater)
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a sweater
for karl in silk garden #88
:: knitting agenda ::
dark&light pattern for nick
from book:: knitting in the nordic tradition by vibeke lind
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this and almost every pattern from "folk bags"
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hat and vest in similar fashion
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my big dreamy dream
:: free pattern ::
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