G-man has brought a love of costume to our life. He dons a costume every day. Presently, we are fixed in a sometimes-medieval, sometimes-mythological world with a particular fondness for dragons and those who love them or hunt them. (It all depends on one’s mood: sword-bearing or cuddly.) But for the last couple of days, everywhere we go, we are accompanied by two peculiar forest creatures. They are good company. Let me introduce them:
The gnome: a mischievous little fellow with a voice so sweet he can sing life back into fallen trees. On any given day, he can be found wandering in the forest in search of berries. There has never lived a creature that loves berries as much as the little gnome
The ogre: a giant beast, green from head to toe. You might think he is a grumpy sort of fellow, as many ogres are known to be curmudgeons. But this ogre, he is a gentle giant. Strong, sturdy and slow about everything he does, except for climbing trees. He can climb to the top of a Ponderosa pine faster than you can say PON-DER-O-SA. Really, he can.
These creatures were a collaborative effort, created by E-man and me for a dear friend’s birthday a while back. I knitted the hats and E-man developed the characters along with an associated story to bring the creatures and our natural environment to life. The ogre and the gnome have lived on in our minds. It seemed absolutely necessary to invite them to settle right here, in the Ponderosa pines of our backyard. So glad we did.
If you’re interested in bringing an ogre and gnome to life in your own backyard, you can find the patterns here: Ogre :::: Gnome.
And if you want help crafting a story, here’s ours. Use your own flora to make the forest critters comfortable in your own corner of the earth.
Happy forest wandering to all!
oh, those hats are just too fantastic.
jack loves to dress up and we have so many costumes & props, including a whole selection of moustaches. good times! ;^)
What marvelous hats! Just catching up on your blog and loving all the pictures!