pine needles

[asakiyume]

Alongside the road and in the woods, the pine needles have dropped. Where the woods path goes through a stand of white pine, I met a grandmother and granddaughter raking up the fallen needles with small bamboo rakes. They were putting them in a long bag, like a cotton picker's sack. Remarkably, they were both wearing coats of exactly the same shade of copper-orange as the pine needles.

"Are you going to put the needles around blueberry bushes to make the soil more acid?" I asked. "Or are you making baskets? Or maybe you're planning a fragrant bonfire?"

"None of those: we're gathering these for felting," the grandmother said. "I didn't realize how much Bethie'd grown this past year--show the lady, Bethie."

Bethie stuck out an arm and I saw the skin on her bare wrist between the end of her coat sleeve and her hand.

"We're going to make you a bigger one, aren't we?"

Bethie nodded.

"Wow--I didn't know you could make felt out of pine needles," I said.

"Oh no? Well, you can, if you have the knack," the old woman said.

I looked more closely at her coat, and at Bethie's, and saw now that the rich, fuzzy orange fabric was decorated with geometric starbursts of pine needle embroidery--a marvel. The grandmother caught my admiring eye and smiled.

A red-tailed hawk screamed, and for some reason that put me in mind of time passing. Work called.

"Well, good luck with the gathering and the project," I said. "The coats are amazing."

"Thank you," the grandmother said, returning to raking. "You have a nice day now." Bethie waved goodbye, and I continued on the woods path. I looked back once, but they were lost from sight.

Photo: "Carpet of Needles, Delamere, Cheshire," by Ian Helsby on Flickr

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Cool!

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

I had no idea.

[selidor]

I have a copper-orange felted hat from a felter in Vancouver. I wonder if some other daughter of these two has moved to Canada, to try her hand with cedar needles...

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I wish that wasn't fiction!

[sovay]

Remarkably, they were both wearing coats of exactly the same shade of copper-orange as the pine needles.

Prrrt.

If this isn't part of something longer, it should be. Or possibly just published as itself.

[pinkroo.livejournal.com]

yes, I want this to be 'true'. I want to see that coat!

What happens when you read while distracted

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Bethie stuck out an arm and I saw the skin on her bare wrist between the end of her coat sleeve and her hand.

I read (understood) this as the girl growing out of her felting and needing to add more to disguise what she truly is. I imagined a woodsy creature made of bough and bark, coated in felted pine to make her look more human. Ah, the joys of trying to concentrate while being constantly solicited by wee ones.

The above was a "false" image I had, but I love all the "true" images this evoked for me.

[duccio.livejournal.com]

Your picture of the forest floor really looks like felt, with little embroideries of rocks, twigs, and stumps in it. I should have djaza make me a quilt of this - because my little bed is so hard.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

This is a lovely story.:)

[c-maxx.livejournal.com]

Great story! Like a fairy tale in limbo, is it true, is it fic?

Missed the clue but suspected fiction, like the suspended gender in Ancillary J!

Just finished Ancil. Sword, also very good.

Best witches, always, ca-madre!

[oiktirmos.livejournal.com]

Sarah P still walks in western MA.