It was perfectly normal, now, to close the door behind me and find my window on our snowy, quiet world. I had left the light off, to allow myself a few moments of contemplation, before getting down to work. It was dark in the room and also in the landscape beyond the thin glass from which I observed your small houses, the luminarias that had been lit these days and the stars, already high in the sky.

I was motionless, lost in the landscape and in my thoughts.

Anita had just come of age and a film made of small moments was running behind my eyelids. There are memories that are preserved almost intact and that move you by their singular intensity: they overwhelm you, extraordinarily detailed. Or perhaps what tears you apart is the emptiness of the memories in between.

I had woken up because the branch of the fir tree opposite had quivered, as it had done before. But this time my little singer had come out, believing that no one would discover him.

Beautiful and tender, in his warm plumage and red chest, he sang in defiance of night and convention, for me. For everyone.

With his cry made of tiny golden notes, he reminded me to weave my time and to collect the moments like diamond crumbs scattered on the snow.

And so I had begun to embroider him, to have him beside me every Christmas.

An outline in split stitch with DMC 841 on one strand of mulinè and then the first round of long and short stitches, covering the right edge of the wing, but with a darker colour (DMC 3790, also on one strand).

Then a return turn, with a backward movement, which is so useful because the direction of the stitch can be anticipated and controlled by pulling the thread.

The chest in red and white (DMC 347 and blanc) and then the beak with a thread of DMC 3371, throwing horizontal stitches to be covered with vertical throws. With the same colour I also embroidered the eye (a two-turn knot) and the little legs in backstitch.

The cast-on stitch wings. I hope the pictures speak for themselves. I would like to remind you here that this is a normal bullion stitch for which you replace the wraps with the stitches that you do to start knitting.

And while I embroidered the snow knots on the branches and above the fir tree, it was snowing outside.

The embroidery was finished, but had to be packed.

I was reassured by the idea that there was still time to spend on this dream.

.