Yarn Along // puffs baby bonnet

Breaking out the crochet is a real challenge these days, as my arms are almost always full with Roan.  And when they're not, I have to guard the precious project-in-progress from Afon.

I got the pattern for this bonnet from {crochetlatte} (who is also my photography muse), and I haven't put the pom poms on it yet.  I might do little balls instead.  We'll see.

Reading The Queen of Air and Darkness from {The Once and Future King by T.H. White}.  Significantly darker in mood than The Sword in the Stone, but I love how White characterizes the four brothers, Arthur's nephews.  White really knows his {Malory}.

#7QT: Reading, Writing, and Drawing

-- one --

Everybody not going to Edel, stand up and say "hey-oh!"

That's it?  Really?!

As for the rest of you, OMG, have fun for us!  I'm so jealous.  Charleston!  (Any other Southern Charmed fans out there?)

-- two --

We finished listening to {Little House on the Prairie} and are now on to {The Sword in the Stone}.  This is a mad favorite of mine, since I am an Arthurian enthusiast.  But it stands on its own as a pristine piece of literature for the ages.

I'm not going to be homeschooling any time soon, at least not Afon, but this book would be ideal as both a model and a tool for home education.  "Eduction is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance" says Merlin.  Wow.  Just think about that for a minute.

And White's knowledge of natural sciences is so thorough and the opposite of boring.  I mean, I liked Biology in high school, but man, if Merlin were teaching it, I might not have gone on the English major track after all, that's how good it is!

White's insights as an Arthurian scholar are really profound as well.  And if you like folklore and fairy tales, you'll not get a better explanation of what fairies are than out of the mouth of Robin Wood in The Sword in the Stone.

This was my professor's copy of Malory when he was in school at Oxford.  It's one of my most prized possessions!

-- three --

I hope that if you are here, you know Tolkien wrote much, much more than the stories of Middle Earth, though no little can be said for the masterpiece that is The Lord of the Rings.  But did you know he was also a talented illustrator?

I've found that people were much better at drawing before the age of television and modern entertainments.  I think it was just natural for the childhood era of drawing to extend further into adolescence and beyond because there weren't as many distractions.  I'm just conjecturing here.  But I've been fond of Tolkein's illustrations ever since purchasing a book that document some of the letters from Father Christmas he wrote for his children.

Now this new book is out with new-to-me pictures that are really fascinating; they remind me of Blake's etchings, and that seems fitting, somehow.  You can read up on {Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator} {here}.

-- four --

It makes me want to start carrying a sketchbook with me everywhere.  I did it in Rome, along with my camera, and now I have a beautiful record of my four months in the Eternal City.  I'm not a great artist, but I'm very fond of the Pre-Raphaelite school and of modern Japanese manga style.

It's my own take on Alice, in Wonderland!  (Suki is my pseudonym for anything fandom.)

-- five --

It's just one more thing that needs prioritization.  While I have small children, blogging is a great channel for creativity because there is no physical product that Afon can tear up and therefore has to be carefully minded and put away out of reach.  Even when I did draw, I was terrible at filing and organization.  I usually just kept all my most recent pictures in a grubby pile by my bed with my art things and then went through them when they got to be too numerous.  I hated when anyone moved or otherwise touched these piles, too, because then I wouldn't know where to find them!

-- six --

So it's probably crazy that I've got this little {Etsy shop} selling hand-lettered quote cards and prints, but I do so enjoy it!

-- seven --

A much speedier outlet is collecting bits of inspiration and things from what I've read and jotting them downing a notebook.  This is called a {commonplace book}, and this is mine:

It's a Moleskine, of course, and Afon helped make it very pretty with some pen marks of his own.  I'd like to get some sketchbook versions of these, too.  If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to custom make them some, and we can go round Etsy.

Joining Bonnie this week for {7 Quick Takes}.

Liturgical Lifestyle: May Day

May Day is one of my favorite days of the liturgical year.  It summons ancestral visions of colorful ribbons flying and excursions into heady woods for bluebells.  Those are the kinds of ghosts I know, rather than the Old Hamlet's variety.

{This time last year}, we ran like wild things on rocky beaches of Britain.  All we were missing was the bonfire!  But I felt while we got the spirit down, we were missing the liturgy.  We had {Saint Walpurga} but wanted for Mary.

Strangely enough, this little country corner of central Florida is more Catholic than the ancient Catholic strongholds of Albany, so we had our pick of grottos and churches to attend to honor Our Lady, and we picked this one near the old Benedictine monastery.  I would have liked a May Crowning, but I didn't give it enough forethought to research how to make a flower crown.  Instead, we brought some potted tulips to sit in the sunshine and draw the butterflies.

Afon ran around wild, reaching for votives and clambering over where the old abbot rests.  My friend Masha says he is a changeling child, and I can't believe how right she is.  And how right it is.  That my wild-spirited son was held still for a few minutes to say his Memorare and his Hail Marys and then let loose again: a perfect embodiment of the synthesis of this holy day.

Yarn Along

This little hat and card arrived yesterday, just in time for mama and baby to come home from the hospital!  I was impressed that it went half way round the world to Alaska in such good timing.  Anyway, it means I can post pictures now without spoiling the surprise.

I more or less made up the pattern for this little crochet hat.  Nothing complex.  I wanted it to look like a little white flower with a green stem.  The recipient won't be able to wear it for a while, but as she wasn't yet born while I was making it, I didn't want to risk the chance of making it too small, so I opted for baby rather than infant/newborn size.

Afon and I are reading The Wind in the Willows aloud at bedtime.  It's a first for both of us, and even though I know he's not really paying attention except for the sparse pictures, I want it imprinted in his memory for when we come to it again.  It really is very much a summer story, something to cuddle up to with the window open and the hint of late evening light lingering in the sky.

I welcomed the Jehovah's Witnesses into my home for their second visit today*, and during a frenzy of cleaning, found these verses from before I was even married (but after I was engaged, as the scrolling signatures practicing my married name attest).  This leaf of paper recently occupied space between the worn pages of my Morte d'Arthur but has since been removed and kindly ripped in three by Sir Afon.  The first lines go like this:

Wales, in places, bares its bones
to wind and time.  The tattered homes
of ancient heroes, nondescript absences
where grass won't

and then were promptly abandoned.  A few lines down, a new stanza beginning a new poem:

Golden Guinevere of the summer wood,
voluptuously ripened in kingdom's plenty.
Echoes in crags of riverbeds sound
the crowning bloom of Arthur's kingdom.
Sweet, full, much for one mouth to contain.
She is honey, stickily clinging to that she touches.
She is the hum of crickets at days end,
a raucous, soothing signal of ending.
She is queen.  She will carry them over,
the flower and the tree.

And then there are some doodles of arrows and leaves.  It was either mid- or late summer when I wrote these lines, not late spring/early summer like it is now, but being here, in Wales, the feeling of what it was to write them is very present to me.  It's interesting to see where my mind was at the time, deeply immersed in writing my Arthurian thesis, in the sun-soaked summer of Wales, mild and fertile.  Looking at them over an expanse of years is eerie and nostalgic, like glimpsing the other side of a riverbank through the fog in early morning.

*Yes, I'm aware they're trying to convert me, even though they say they aren't.  But they don't know that I know.  And they certainly don't know that I'm trying to convert them back!

Liturgical Living: an Alternative Lifestyle

This was {originally posted here} on Oct. 1, 2013.

Hope you've noticed--I've been making note of the feast days for each blog entry these past weeks.  It's a habit I first encountered in a young adult book (highly recommended), Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Kushman.  In this journal of an English adolescent and daughter of a poor country knight, Birdy conveys her society's saturation with the liturgical seasons.  The book made a lasting impression on me: first, as a novel worth emulating, if I ever wanted to write and publish a story of my own one day; and second, as witness to the beauty and rhythm of the seasons observed by the medieval Church.

In my desire and resolutions to live a more liturgically-focused lifestyle, I've found an excuse to take up Birdy's practice.  And though we've been extremely busy these past few weeks, what with new jobs, colds, fundraisers, and speech therapy appointments, I'm not unhappy with my novice's attempt to live liturgically this Ordinary Time.

Making hot cross buns for Holy Cross Day.  I substituted maple syrup and almond milk, and left out the currants.

They came out delicious!  Even though the crosses made them look more like fortune cookies.

So how does one incorporate the feasts of the Church into everyday life?  In this, I've found two main sources helpful: CatholicCulture.org is an excellent online resource to the liturgical year, with brief introductions of saints and feast days and links to recipes, activities, crafts, and prayers; The Year and Our Children is also helpful to have on hand.

This September, there were hot cross buns for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Sept. 14).  I cooked up a huge pot of farfalle with peppers and Italian sausage in memorial of Saint Padre Pio (Sept. 23).  We sang "Good King Wenceslaus" on St. Wenceslaus's day (Sept. 28) and baked tea cookies to honor the English tradition of free tea shop treats on this old saint's feast.  And though I would have liked a devil pinata for Michaelmas (Sept. 29), we made do with Saint Michael's the Archangel's prayers for attacking our colds and defending our good health.

While the secular world moves through its cycles, we are aware of the deeper meanings behind berries and bonfires.

The Harvest Moon is always the full moon nearest to the autumn equinox--this month, Sept. 19, Feast of Saint Januarius.

My son is still young, so we've set aside the crafts for next year.  And while the recipes have been hit or miss, depending on the amount of time they take to prepare and my wellness that day, merely being aware of the liturgical season has placed a peace on me--as one who inhabits a country or climate is more secure, more aware of the lively world around her, assured of her place and role in Creation.

I still read Catherine, Called Birdy about once a year, incidentally, completely by accident.