I finished the "Dublin Bay" socks this afternoon, thanks to (first) "The History of the World, Part 1" having been on television (SOME of Mel Brooks' humor is a bit raw for me but I love the little tiny throwaway touches, like "You are nuts! N-V-T-S, nuts!" in the Roman Empire bit. And the crack about "Don't get saucy with me, Bearnaise" in the French Revolution part) and (second) to having a new book on the history of ecology to read:



I'm really happy with them; I think the pattern and the colors in the yarn make a very harmonious fusion. (Note alternative use of beanbag Eeyore as a book-weight.)

Also, while I was taking pictures in my room, I decided to include a photograph of what was sort of the inspiration for the name of the blog:



It's a fillyjonk. Or rather, my interpretation of the one shown in the colored picture on the front of the paperback edition of "Moominvalley in November." I think I made the fillyjonk when I was about 12 or so - I'm guessing that because parts of the body and the clothing are machine-sewn, and I didn't sew much on a machine until I inherited one from my paternal grandmother, which would have been when I was 12 or so. This is actually the second fillyjonk I made. The first one was much smaller and (as far as I know) no longer exists. It was, as was typical of the small toys I made as a child, based on a chenille stem armature with a felt body. The dress was from a scrap of calico - I can still actually picture it in my mind.

The first toy fillyjonk was made shortly after I read the Moominvalley books. I think it was when I was 10 or so - I had got a copy of "Tales from Moominvalley" on a trip to Boston (I think it was...I know the book was purchased when I was on vacation with my family). I read the book and was immediately startled by the tale of the Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters - because it was the first time I had seen captured in print some of the fears and worries and what I knew even then to be the oddnesses of my character. (One of the things that still strikes me about Tove Jansson's stories, re-reading them as an adult, is how perceptive she was about human nature, and how her stories, not unlike Aesop's Fables, captured some of the more quirky and even, at times, unpleasant, attitudes of people.).

So I felt moved to make a small figure of the creature. The original fillyjonk, as I said, was small - I was moved to make a house for her. I tried to imagine the life of the fillyjonk after the ugly house that she thought had belonged to an ancestor (but didn't) was wrecked by the storm, and I imagined she'd set off - and find housing that was cozier and more individual. So I made her a gypsy caravan of sorts from a shoe box. (I may also have read "Danny, the Champion of the World" at about the same time, hence the gypsy caravan idea.). There was a little bed at the back of the caravan, and a table and chair, and I think a deep lid from a cocoa tin or something that I imagined could serve as a washbasin...the "caravan" was pulled by the horses left from the Fisher-Price castle I had had as a younger child.

Later - as I said, when I was about 12 or so - I felt moved to make a larger, softer version of the Fillyjonk, the one you see pictured here. She looks younger (and perhaps, sillier) than the ones in the books, I think it is because her eyes are slightly crossed and she has that ridiculous mascara on. She is wearing a dress made of wool (and the moths have been at it, alas). Her sweater is made from a mateless sock, as is the little Phrygian cap (which is similar to a cap she is shown wearing in one of the pictures in the book). She also has - I was a stickler for verisimilitude - high, white Victorian shoes, pantalets and a petticoat and even a corset. (in "Moominvalley in November," when the fillyjonk almost falls off her roof after escaping out a window to get away from moth cocoons - it's a long story - she's described in her misery as having her "corset all twisted up somewhere." That always struck me as odd; the fillyjonks are pictured as tall thin animals and I couldn't imagine someone who didn't NEED a corset as choosing to wear one. Perhaps it was a different word in the original language, perhaps something more like "brassiere" and the translator felt that it was more proper to use a less-titillating term. Then again, I'm not even sure fillyjonks are actually mammals, and if they are, if they had mammaries in the same number and arrangement as human females...and as I said, they're tall and thin [and at least in the drawings in the book, board-flat], so I would think THAT particular undergarment would be as unnecessary as a corset...but I digress). The "corset" is made basically of some tightly wrapped ribbon; I was unfamiliar with the structure of the garments, having pretty much only seen them in cartoons.

I've kept the creature all these years. Now, she sits on a bookcase in my bedroom and I see her every morning when I go to the closet to pick out my clothes. She makes me smile; she reminds me of the child I was. Sometimes I even pat her on the head as I go by.

And I have to admit, as I think now, I made this creature at 12 or 13 or so. And I look at what 12 and 13 year old girls seem to be doing now, and I do not know whether to be more embarrassed at my apparent immaturity, or to be shocked at their seeming sophistication. I will say I think my extended childhood left me happier than if I had put my furry creatures all away, and consigned the "children's books" to the library used-book sale, and feigned an interest in top-40 radio and fashion as soon as I hit 12....