The Saracen's Head

Legolas

This post is about the nifty presents my brother and mother lavished on me this Christmas for the purpose of being Legolas. I had mentioned numerous times that I wanted a fur lined white wool hood and all summer I had been asking for the knife (spending hours mooning over all the daggers at Kult of Athena with Josiah). At last I got them!

When I told my pen-pal all about them in a letter she said that I shd. post pictures of them on my blog. So, Josiah and I went out in the woods and had a photoshoot, as it is called.

First, here's a close up of this amazing Silver Hafted White Knife made by Josiah. It's got a real wooden sheath with belt-hanger and it has my name on it in runes.

Observe:

Also, Josiah made the bow, quiver and arrows years back when I wanted them to be Susan (ha!). Mother made the White Hood Trimmed With Fur, which I have seen in pictures of Legolas by Hildebrandt.

I can walk this bridge, but the others have not the skill.

Close-up of hood.


Check out the epic silver clasp from Norway!

Lookit the silver tassel! and the epic quiver.



Legolas stood in the middle of the clearing leaning forward as if listening.

I could have been happy here in times of peace ...

They are old, so old that I feel young again, young as I have not felt since I traveled with you children. (Meaning Aragorn and Gimli!)

Thus endeth this post. I will leave, I will leave, the woods that bore me, for our years are ending and our days are failing, I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing...

Needle and thREAD

To-day I am joining Mrs. Foss in needle and thREAD, about what you're sewing and what you're reading.

I don't sew very often at all, but yesterday being Kateri's birthday, I made her a set of handkerchiefs. They're each decorated with 'free-motion' butterflies, stitched on the machine. I like this technique 'cause it's just like doodling on fabric.

I am reading two books I received for my birthday from Mother (who knows what I like best, of course). Baby Bird Portraits by George Miksch Sutton and Sandhill and Whooping Cranes, both written by Paul A. Johnsgard. Baby Bird Portraits is full of such lifelike watercolours of little birds, many painted right from live subjects. The artist George Sutton frequently raised young birds to study and paint.

I like to sit and feast on the paintings. You can practically hear his fledglings cheep. There's nothing quite like discovering a good watercolour bird artist.

The text by P. Johnsgard is good too. He tells such funny stories about his ornithology students.

Sandhill and Whooping Cranes is about my newest birds-that-I'm-obsessed-with. I like it very much as it gives all sorts of information about which cranes and subspecies live where and migrate where else. It has a whole tantalizing appendix on 'Where to See Cranes'.

Now, here's something: George Sutton the artist knew Louis Fuertes, another Very Famous artist, who I learned about in Birdology and whose paintings are on a poster in my room. Sutton also visited to Hawk Mountain, and is connected with Maurice Broun, whose book Hawks Aloft I read all the time. Also, he knew Johnsgard, who knew George Archibald, co-founder of the International Crane Foundation, who I talk about all the time, being obsessed with cranes.

So many of my favorite familiar bird people are all tied up together!

Well, that is my needle and thREAD, and thank you Mrs. Foss for hosting. It's jolly.

Posted by L.G.T.

Lent!

 

 Here is a Lent calendar which I've made for this year. Good for small folks to color in a space every day. There are also marked Important Days and Feasts, also fishes for fasting days. You can print it out if you want (select 'fit to printable area' when you print):

Download 2012 Lent

 posted by LGT

Zita

Here is Zita the Pegdoll, 'cause Mr Hatke wanted to see her...  (Anna made her, but she belongs to Kateri)

We people are rather fond of Zita the Spacegirl. Once we even started doing a 'radio drama' of the book, with an eggbeater as the Screed and a toy cash register as the mouse, and Kateri was Zita. And she had to say, "I thought that kind of thing always burned up in the atmosphere" a whole lot of times to get the pronunciation right. But though she tried valiantly to say "blrg" time and again, it never did sound quite like a giant snail had run her over.

We all read the book over and over so when we tried to recite it from memory, we got pretty far along! We started drawing Zita, and she still shows up in doodles occasionally. And so she showed up as a peg doll in a Christmas stocking.

Well, that's all fer t'day, folks. I'm just being a helpful citizen and posting a picture.

posted by L.G.T.

In Which We Make Sketch-books

In other news, Anna and I have made a couple of sketchbooks for a couple of Christmas presents.

This picture is the plot-give-away! Shows just what happens in the end.

Our Mum found us a how-to-make-a-little-book and it actually worked! It was nice and easy. Not complicated.

First we cut out loads of papers and scored them in the middle with the super-de-duper bone folder on the super-de-duper scoring board. We decided the paper size based on how big our strips of cover material were. Our little-bunches-of-paper, also called signatures, had each of them four pages. Anna had nine signatures, and I had eight. We started out with five, but we wanted thicker sketchbooks. In order that we might sew the books together, Mum punched us some holes through the pages and through the cover with an awl (good for mending sails, saddles, gun cases, shoes...).


Our Mum also gave us some nice green leather from something-cut-up, which made nice covers. To sew the pages & cover together we used some thickish string or thinnish rope. Some kind of ancient vintage twiney thread. It really looked epic.

But must pull the thread tight- loose stitches on the spine do look so untidy and unscientific.

When the sewing was done, we cut the cover leather to a suitable length, so that a long flap wrapped front-to-back and round again. Also we added a long tie. Decorative, eh?  And look at my new scissors I got for Christmas! Ha ha! Hee hee! I've got bird scissors! Are they not awful pretty? I like to fancy that it's a Whooping Crane  but really it's a stork.

Well, in the end, we said unto one another, "The leather- it is too thin", and we reinforced both covers by gluing in cardboard-covered-in-paper. Also, we folded and glued a flap of leather cover over the aforesaid reinforcements. Naturally we inscribed the front with a name:

And hey-presto! Loo-ook at the boo-ook!

Posted by L.G.T.

Presents I Made (A. R.)

  Once upon a time there was a giant. He had three heads, and he lived in a BRASS CASTLE!

Well, anyways, all that was beside the purpose, if you take my meaning. What I meant was here are all the presents I made!  (that was obvious) At any rate, first are Dad's stocking stuffers:  

An A.T. C.-size painting of the nativity and a crocheted dishrag. Dishrags make great gifts, but they are boring, absurd or even contemptible.

For Jonathan, I made this small wooden plaque. (Y' know: J. M. K.) (M as in Michael) Shiny, ain't it?

Here are Mother's S.S.s.The one thing was meant to be an Icon but isn't very. Too bad. Also a rubber stamp I carved o' St. Anthony (just what she always wanted)(for the purpose of stamping envelopes, parcels, etc.)(it's stuck to a wooden block to be more decorative)(what's the deal with putting things in parenthesis?)(?).  

This is Jonathan's other S.S.: A book with the words t' Waltzing Matilda in elvish in a dittle book. Complete with illustrations of swagman, jumbuck, tuckerbag, matilda, and troopers. And the paper is aged with watercolours! For Josiah, I painted this watercolour bookmark with a quotation from the story Master of all Masters. And that blue thing in the bottom left-hand corner is another book in elvish, The Rattlin' Pass (just a variant).The thing about that one was that, as the verses got longer and longer, my writing was obliged to become smaller and smaller. Velly intelesting.   

I made a bookmark for Lydia, too. Hers is more epic, though. Besides being drawn with pen-and-ink, alliterative poetry (and magoific at that!) is just infinitely superior to barnacles and such, in my opinion. We heard of the horns in the hills ringing... Anyways I also gave Lydia this little sketchbook I made.

Mary Rose's S.S.s: Merry Rows wanted a picture of Imrahil like unto the one I drew back in 1492, so I painted this for her. Too bad most of his banner isn't in the shot. But the black paint made of purple and green is pretty convincing, don't you think? I made her that bracelet, too, but it is nothing of consequence.

So, on to Eliza's!  Wow, two presents made with the sewing machine, and they weren't failures, or even semi-failures! The mittens are made out of a wool sweater, and the headband isn't (that was obvious). Anyone can see it was made from decorative ribband and white stuff). 

 I gave Kateri a sketchbook like Lydia's, only different (the kind you whip up on the sew-machine). And a  Z. the S. G. peg doll. Nhg.

For Mother and Dad I crocheted a couple o' black wool sparfs.

Mum's has a ruffle, but Da's doesn't.

I didn't even know what t' give Jonathan until Christmas eve! A scribbled-on tea-cup! Unfortunate thing: some of the stars have six points and some have seven. Untidy.

I also viciously chopped up another wool sweater and put it together the wrong way. It ended up looking sort of like a Knightcap, so I gave it to Josiah, even though he ain't rilly a knight.   

Lyd's M.P. was this glumpy apron made out of a sheet. It is terribly unepic, alas, alack!

  

I gave M. R. a wood plak (wow, bad spelling!) o' St. Cecelia: this one is woodburned and watercoloured both at once! You may notice that the halo is crooked and the harp is igsty, but we waive that point... (bother, I already used that quote in some other post).

For Kateri I painted a full-colour map o'  Narnia, as she has become somewhat obsessed with that place of late. Lots easier than Middle Earth, but not as spiffy.---- --- -- ------- -- --, ---?

 I gave Eliza a puppy dog for no apparent reason other than I wanted to make one. Zowie, people thought I was off my chump for buying  such a strange sweater as I did (it looked like a thneed!) (fuzzy brown stuff to make the puppy out of) 

Well, that's all the presents I made. Only twenty-four.

So, you see, Bilbo had come in the end by the only road that was any good.

 Posted by A. R. B.