Ana and Edna anew
Remember this hat from last October? I knit it as a store sample, and a lot of you liked it, so I thought I’d send out a public service announcement: I was in Knit/Purl this afternoon and saw that the kits are in at last! They aren’t up on the website yet, but I know that Jenni will be glad to send you one if you call them up.
How did I come to be at the yarn store on a Monday afternoon, you might like to know? It’s Spring Break, my friends. And I’ve got a few days of blissful relaxation up on the island planned. There’s all kinds of knitting on the lace stole to accomplish, but a girl can’t go cross-eyed over lace for too many hours a day. And I want to make serious progress on poor neglected Victoria, but if I can’t block the bias out of the top, I’ll need a Plan B. So I’ll be taking this:
Yes, I had to snag a new Ana hat kit for myself! I adored the Fleece Artist Woolie Silk 3-Ply, and this is just my color green. Plus it was surprisingly cold today, and I even heard a rumor of snow on the horizon. It probably won’t fall down at sea level, but it’s always nice to have a stylish hat to pull on just in case!
The Woolie Silk is special stuff, and so I found it worthy of reclining on my new treasure:
A shipment of things from my grandmother’s apartment in Connecticut arrived last week. We scored a fold-out couch for the library/guest room and an extra bureau, but the chief delight was a first edition of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Huntsman, What Quarry? It’s inscribed Rufus from Tad 1939 – a gift to my grandmother from my grandfather in the year they were married. (The endpapers, in a charming non sequitur, bear a genealogy of French kings from Louis XIII to Louis XVIII in my grandmother’s pencil.) My grandparents were always so removed from me in years and geography that I get a particular charge from discovering tastes I have in common with them. I knew they both liked poetry; I didn’t know they admired Millay. Of course she was a celebrity in New York during their youth – somehow Millay’s bohemian Village life never dovetailed in my mind with the G-rated family stories playing out in the East 30s and 40s. But these same grandparents also danced to Artie Shaw, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, and other titans of the jazz scene all through their courtship. How I wish I could have known them then.
Leafing through Huntsman, I see that Gram made historical notes after poems that spoke to current events like “Say That We Saw Spain Die” (“Spain’s Civil War between the Loyalists and the Rebels has come to an end – 1939”) and the third Sonnet in Tetrameter (“Japan is warring against China – 1939. The peace yet in sight.”) What made her do this? Did she have some sense that her unborn children and grandchildren might read this book of poems, and her schoolteacher’s habits dictated that she pass along her understanding of its original context? Or did she seize an opportunity to preserve a moment in history, hoping to look back at this little book from the other side of the gathering storm of war and remember the world on the brink? She was 97 last September; dusk is drawing down on her at last. I won’t be able to ask her what this book meant to her. But I’ll keep it always, and wonder.
Posted: March 25th, 2008 at 4:11 am
oooooh! that hat! i love that hat. if only i had yarn dispensation in the budget.
Posted: March 25th, 2008 at 5:02 am
What a treasure, indeed. I wonder if my own grandchildren will get my Chaucer texts and value them as much, with my chicken scratch all over every page. It must be such a neat feeling to read over what she read, like getting a window into her thoughts.
Posted: March 25th, 2008 at 5:33 am
What a precious book! It seems like you’re going to have a fantastic Spring break between the book and your knitting 🙂
Posted: March 25th, 2008 at 6:56 am
That’s a real item to treasure. My most precious book is a copy of Jane Austen’s collected work presented to my grandmother by her father in honor of her confirmation.
Posted: March 25th, 2008 at 7:05 am
What a treasure! Not only a 1st ed. Millay, but one that your grandmother pored over lovingly and intelligently. btw, have you read Nancy Milford’s Savage Beauty, the bio of Millay? It’s very well done.
Posted: March 25th, 2008 at 8:58 am
I love finding treasures such as books like that (though I’ll likely never pass something along in such a fashion, because I have a huge aversion to writing in my own books). It is great seeing how someone else might have thought as they were reading the book.
(I really want the hat, but I don’t think I can buy any yarn for another few weeks. Hopefully the kits will last around that long.)
Posted: March 25th, 2008 at 11:41 am
What a charming story about your grandparents! And an heirloom to truly be treasured!
Posted: March 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Oh! The violets and the poetry and the spring break and the bittersweet story of your grandmother’s life.
Posted: March 25th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
What a wonderful gift! Old books are so precious, particularly those given to you by a family member. I hope you will share some Millay with us, if not some Millay inspired patterns. 🙂
Posted: March 26th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Oh, how lovely. I agree you should read Savage Beauty if you haven’t yet – what an amazing woman Millay was.
And … Debby is right – Millay would make some great inspiration for patterns.
Posted: March 26th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
What a wonderful treasure! There is nothing like the aura of an old book.
The aura of an untouched cake of yarn does come close, though. I can’t wait to see pictures of your spring-break WIPs.
Posted: March 27th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Your two paragraphs on your grandparents are gorgeously written. If you wrote a book, I would read it. I am not much of a comment leaver but I needed to leave one for the writing.
Posted: March 27th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I loved everything about this entry. The part about your grandparents was marvelous.
And that hat! Ah, it is gorgeous. 🙂