Picture Book #5: Green Yarn
One day, Katie was looking through the closet when she came across a roll of green yarn. Katie picked up the yarn and knew at once that this yarn would make the most beautiful sweater. She asked her mother to make the yarn into a sweater, which she lovingly and skillfully did. Katie wore her sweater night and day. She wore it to school, she wore it at home, she wore it to the grocery store and at her friends’ houses. She put it on the minute she woke up and took it off only when she was getting ready for bed. Weeks went by, then months, and soon Katie started growing out of her wonderful sweater. When the sleeves were several inches too short and the buttons didn’t always stay closed, Katie’s mother unraveled the coat and made it into a scarf. Kate got a new coat to replace to green one, but she never loved it the way she loved her new green scarf. Katie wore her scarf night and day. She wore it when it was cold, she wore it when was warm. She put it on the minute she walked out the door and didn’t take it off until she was back home. Weeks went by, then months, and soon the edges of the scarf had started to fray. So as much as Katie loved her scarf, she agreed to unravel it and make it into something else. But her mother was busy and forgot. So it stayed in a roll of green thread for weeks, then months, then years. When Katie grew up and moved into a house of her own, she put the green yarn into the closet. Six years later, her daughter Mary was looking through the closet when she came across the roll of green yarn. Mary picked up the yarn and knew at once that it would make the most beautiful sweater.
When I originally thought of the idea “Adventures of a Coat", I thought it was going to be a bit of a different story, about several generations of a family, and the coat was going to be a man’s overcoat, like my pre-marathon prep sketch (a combination of several different tracings)
Then several thoughts started to come together at once. I was writing about a roll of yarn for another picture book idea. I thought about how my Omi Mary always makes her own (beautiful) sweaters, and how I was fascinated by all of her yarn and by her knitting when I was younger. (A favorite game of my brother’s and mine was called spiderweb and involved taking all of her yarn out of the closet and stringing it all across the living room. I wish I had a picture of it.) I also started thinking about a coat I used to love. I still love it, although it’s a bit small now. It’s bright green, just like Katie’s sweater in the story. All of these thoughts came together into what became the story I have now like this:
If you can’t tell, that’s a giant whiteboard with basically the entire story on it in sections.
By the way, Katie’s character came out of a book I loved years ago called Katie meets the impressionists (picture below). Although my Katie turned out a little bit differently, her origin is in that book, which I highly recommend.
Also, I originally imagined my Katie’s coat (now a sweater) like the one in this book. Then I realized that it’d be pretty hard (if it’s even possible) to make a coat out of yarn, so I turned it into a sweater instead.
I don't have any illustrations for this yet. I'm publishing this with an earlier time-stamp than it actually is, because I'm betting my parents will read this post (hi mom and dad!). I'll just say, it's late. And I want to go to bed and not make another illustration since I just finished the Odyssey one a few hours ago. I'll draw and post the illustration for this tomorrow. I want to try drawing it by hand first again. Anyway, I'm off to bed now.
G'night,
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