Christmas in Evergreen Tidings of Joy - Nancy Naigle Page 0,46
the dome for the snow globe. Maybe she’d stumble into more details for her story too.
The air nipped at her nose as she entered the arts center. She raced up the stairs, glad to rush inside and get warm. Near the door, a group of people were whip-stitching felt stockings together. A stack of completed ones were piled high at the end of the table. Two women sat behind fancy sewing machines, embroidering names on them one at a time.
Katie passed by, wishing she’d thought to have one made with her name on it. She hadn’t ever hung a stocking by the fireplace in her apartment. Mom probably had the ones they’d used back when she was a kid. She could remember what they looked like—all four of them hung up from left to right: Dad, Mom, Bill, Katie. Red stockings with white cuffs and plaid toes and heels. Hers had a snowman juggling snowflakes on it. She wondered if she’d loved snowmen before the stocking or the stocking had made her love snowmen.
The room warmed dramatically the closer she got to the fiery furnace, where the glassblowing was taking place. For some reason, she’d pictured the furnace being about the size of a grill, but this was more like a massive full-service brick pizza oven. Long metal tables filled with a plethora of odd tools made up workstations in front of it.
“Hey, Katie,” Elliott said as he pushed a long pipe into the furnace. “We’re just getting started.”
She wandered a little closer while staying out of the way of the equipment. “I hope you don’t mind if I just hang out and watch.”
“Not at all. Just grab some protective goggles and enjoy.”
Katie got a pair of goggles and put them on. They were so big on her face she felt a little like a ladybug. She walked over to admire a towering rack of red-and-green sparkle-laden glass ornaments that’d just come from the annealer and hung to finish the process.
Everyone in this part of the center wore the big safety glasses that, combined with the furnace and all the strange tools, made her feel a little like she was in some kind of sci-fi movie.
Katie took notes as Elliott explained each step to Hannah.
“The furnace heats the glass to two thousand degrees, making it malleable.” He dipped one end of the blowpipe into the furnace and rolled it over the molten glass until a gob attached to it. “We call this gathering.”
“It’s kind of intimidating,” Hannah said.
“From here we move to the marver.”
It looked like an old metal table to Katie, but apparently whatever it was made out of helped keep the temperature and shape of the glass. She walked over to where Megan was working on something else. “These decorations you’ve made, Megan. They’re so beautiful.” Katie opened her blue notebook.
“Thank you.” Megan looked up but never stopped working. “Hot glass is like honey.” She rolled a metal pipe with a blazing gob of molten glass on the end across a steel worktable. “Coordination is key.” In a wide-legged stance, she shifted her weight almost like a lunge. “It’s like a dance between heat, gravity and centrifugal force.” Megan lifted the blowpipe, the gob of glass no longer a small gob but already taking on a distinct shape.
“Where did you learn how to do this?”
“My mother taught me. Also my sister, Barbara. She actually owns the inn. We’ve been making glass ornaments for years. I sell them down at Daisy’s.”
“Okay,” Elliott said as he pulled a blowpipe out of the glory hole with Hannah standing by.
Katie stepped out of the way, still jotting notes. This was absolutely fascinating. A hero glassblower would have to make it into one of her books someday.
“Let’s do this.” Elliott placed the gob on the table just as Megan had done with hers. Hannah hovered close, one hand on his back as he shaped the glass. “Time to put the globe—”
“—back in snow globe,” he and Hannah said at the same time.
“Thank you for fixing this.”
“See, it’s still sort of a tinker shop as much as it’s an arts center,” Elliott said. “I like the name.” His eyes were wide, hopeful.
“I know. Thanks for keeping the name. It’s just so much more now. The more time I spend time here, the more I fall in love with all it has become. I admire what you’ve done. Thanks for carrying on our legacy along with it.”