Yarn Along: Little House

I've begun a new project.  The other day, I came home to an adorable message on my answering machine from my sister Emily's daugher, who is 5.  "Hi Auntie Kate, it's me, Sugar Plum!  Merry Christmas!  I was wondering if you could please call me back.  Love you!  Say hi to Uncle Peter.  Bye!"  When I called, she sweetly asked me if I would please knit her a shawl so she could be like Laura in the Little House books.  I found the perfect pattern: Joanna Johnson's Little House Shawl.  Joanna has a little girl who also fell in love with the books and wanted to channel Laura.  How could I resist using this pattern?  

Sugar Plum and I talked it over, and settled on pinks and browns, which I already had in the stash.  (Knit Picks Stroll Kettle Dyed Sock Yarn in Summer Blooms, a bright pink, and Berroco Sox in a self-striping brown and fuchsia combo.)  I'll hold the yarn doubled and also up the needle size, in hopes of getting a larger shawl.

So though I am still monogamously reading Green Dolphin Street, I thought I'd share a quote from Little House on the Prairie:

Laura lay down, but her eyes would not shut. She knew that Pa was out in the dark, where that terrible howling was. The wild men were in the bluffs along the creek bottoms, and Pa would have to cross the creek bottoms in the dark. Jack growled. Then Ma began to sway gently in the comfortable rocking-chair. Fire-light ran up and down, up and down the barrel of Pa's pistol in her lap. And Ma sang, softly and sweetly: 

"There is a happy land, Far, far away,Where saints in glory stand, Bright, bright as day. 

"Oh, to hear the angels sing, Glory to the Lord, our                            King—"

 Laura didn't know that she had gone to sleep. She thought the shining angels began to sing with Ma, and she lay listening to their heavenly singing until suddenly her eyes opened and she saw Pa standing by the fire.
She jumped out of bed, shouting, "Oh Pa! Pa!"Pa's boots were caked with frozen mud, his nose was red with cold, his hair wildly stood up on his head. He was so cold that coldness came through Laura's nightgown when she reached him."Wait!" he said. He wrapped Laura in Ma's big shawl, and then he hugged her. Everything was all right. The house was cozy with firelight, there was the warm, brown smell of coffee, Ma was smiling, and Pa was there.The shawl was so large that Mary wrapped the other end of it around her. Pa pulled off his stiff boots and warmed his stiff, cold hands. Then he sat on the bench and he took Mary on one knee and Laura on the other and he hugged them against him, all snuggled in the shawl. Their bare toes toasted in the heat from the fire."Ah!" Pa sighed. "I thought I never would get here."

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little House on the Prairie

p  219-221

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