The Answers

First the answers to yesterday's puzzlers:  #159 was indeed a belt buckle (although someone thought it was a fastener for an ace bandage, and I can definitely see that!), specifically my Grandmother's, made from an abalone shell in the 1920s.  #160 wasn't actually a Rapidograph, which two people guessed, but that's not too far off  It's a small ivory dip pen inlaid with gold filigree designs.  The nib, which was evidently very small, is missing.

# 161 is a kind of milagro or holy medal as two people guessed, made from a flat but slightly curling piece of tin.  I bought it in Rome from a religious article shop near St. Peter's, where it was sold as a Sacred Heart ex voto, similar to a milagro, and was meant to hang near a saint's statue in petition or thanksgiving for a prayer that was answered. 

As several of you guessed, #162 is a bell, a goat bell that we found in our garden when we digging it many years ago.  Mary correctly guessed #163 as a porcupine quill.  I found it along a road in Italy. 

The biggest mystery turned out to be #164, which I clearly didn't do a very good job of drawing!.  Everyone thought it was either a loofa or some other kind of sponge.  In retrospect I think it looks like the end of a whole wheat baguette.  But actually it's a very large crinoid that I found in a creek bed in southern Indiana.  A crinoid is a petrified blossom from prehistoric times.  This is the largest one I've ever found, and it has an interesting petal-like form running down its tapering side.  I should have used watercolor to draw it as the pen texture is misleading.

Well done all of you!  I'll do another contest when I find some more mystery things.


And now briefly, today's drawings:  up on the top, left, is an interesting straw paper that I saw in a Thai restaurant today.  I carefully deconstructed it to figure out how it was made.  All the other drawings are labeled-- various brushes that I use in my studio and which I find very beautiful as well as functional.