The Third Annual Solstice Knit-In brought a great group of knitters together. As I thought about the gathering, and what I wanted to read, I kept coming back to my family's holiday favorite, Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas.

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Published in 1971, it's written and illustrated by the justly famous and prolific Russell Hoban and Lillian Hoban. Although there was an animated video made from this O.Henry-like story, the book is a singular treat.

But plans often go awry, and that's what happened Friday night. As it turns out, three of the people in attendance personally knew the subject of the KnitLit (too) story, "The Live-Lobster Sweater", written by Suzanne Strempek Shea. So, in honor of Suzanne and the subject of her story, Zedra Jurist Aranow, we read her story.

To lighten up the mood after Suzanne's moving story, we then read one of my all-time personal favorites, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's "Our Knitting Heroine". It's as funny as always.

"More!", everyone cried, so Jay Elliott read "Aunt Ruth" from KnitLit.

To end the evening we read the prologue and coda from Mary Barnard's Time and the White Tigress, the 1986 Western States Book Award for Poetry.

This extraordinary volume is divided into ten Fyttes:

Fit, fytte, obs. exc. arch. Some regard the word as identical with OHG fiza list of cloth, mod. Ger. fitze skein of yarn, also explained in the 17th c. as the thread with which weavers mark off a day's work; the send 'division or canto of a poem' might well be a transferred use of this... O.E.D.

The light comes! With best wishes for the New Year,