IMAGINE...what if the sun were to drop an egg? Can you imagine it? Can you see what the egg would look like? Would it be red with flames all ablaze? Would it be yellow and oozing of molten lava? Would it be orange-green, like an orange? And if you were a little elf who lived in the woods and you often found it in your nature to rescue little eggs that fell from trees and belonged to birds or other animals, how would you go about returning an egg to the sun?

The story really began when a small boy went looking for wild strawberries in the wood and dropped an orange out of his picnic box.

One day, when a little elf went exploring in the wood, she saw the large, round and yellow orange lying on the ground.

What a big egg," she thought. "Where has it come from, I wonder?" She looked up and saw a bright hole in the clouds overhead.

"I know," she said. "The sun has dropped an egg and she can't see it because the cloud's in the way."

The Sun Egg, Elsa Beskow

She wondered why the egg of the sun is not scorching hot as she thought it would be.

Nonetheless, she still thought that she needed to protect it and keep it safe until it can be returned to it's mother. She she sat down beside it and kept vigilant watch over it.

Each day she would visit the egg several times a day to be sure it had not hatched and that it stood safe where it fell.

Day after day.........

.........after day, after day.....

She spent hours on end sitting with the egg...watching, listening, waiting...waiting and waiting.

Ever faithfully, as the days went on, she would remain by the side of the sun egg constantly, sleeping next to it, waking next to it.

In truth...she was the only mother the sun egg ever had for she was there day in and day out, keeping careful watch, protecting, listening, waiting, hoping, fearing....fearing for the day when the egg would hatch or when she would have to see it go off....back into the heavens. She is mother of the sun egg. Her name is Clementine.

When I received a request for a red-haired Gardien, I could not help but remember the story of The Sun Egg by Elsa Beskow. I love the little folktale books by Beskow. Each story is filled with fantasy fairies and beautiful illustrations of a wonderful imaginary world full of gnomes, elves and captivating little beings that live in the woods. In The Sun Egg, a little woodland elf stumbles upon an orange dropped by a little boy. She thinks it was an egg dropped by the sun. So she goes to share the discovery with all of her woodland friends. And so began the little adventure of the red-haired elf in a white dress.

For my own fun story telling purposes, the version of the story above is told from my own meandering mind and the name Clementine was derived, not from the story, but from my own whimsy.

Clementine is made from Scarlet Elfcup's Gardien pattern. She is a little over 5” long and is made with 100% cotton interlock and stuffed with bio-wool. Her face is embroidered with cotton floss. Her beautiful red mane is made of mohair and can be fashioned in a number of ways.