Hawks and Spiders

I firmly believe some of life's best lessons come from the critters that the Good Lord has blessed us with.  Consequently, I also believe that God had the most fun when He created the animals -- but that's another blog entirely.

I think, for me, it boils down to two simple facts:  Some of my best friends have had more than two legs...and I am blessed enough to live waaayyyyyyyy out in the country.  This location has allowed my family to "baby sit" ostriches, have a variety of critters as pets, and have a pretty darn good glimpse at the local wildlife -- the real wild life, not the kinds that hang out at clubs until dark o'thirty in the morning.

Birds in particular thrive out here.  I know the woodpeckers are back.  I haven't seen one yet, but I hear them almost every morning when I leave for work.  I hope my "window sill" buddies are back this spring.  I've seen them several times revisiting their nest that I haven't had the heart to clean out yet.  I will soon, and sprinkle moth balls underneath the window to keep away the snakes, just in case the birdies decide to share my kitchen window again when it warms up. 

However, this fall and winter brought a new feathered friend to my yard...a red-tailed hawk.  Bill and I have always caught glimpses of these guys, but for whatever reason it is, this year they seem to be more abundant.  We noticed one particular hawk hanging out close to our house -- first he would sit on the railing of one of our barns or on the power lines beside the house.  Then I caught a glimpse of him actually walking in our yard.  I've seen them swoop down and grab rabbits (don't get all dewy-eyed with me here...it's the circle of life, folks) and then sit and eat their dinner, but this guy....he was walking around my yard like he owned the place. 

How. Odd.

Especially if you've never seen a hawk walk...they kind of waddle.

We did finally figure out what he was doing.  See, we have a mole.  Or maybe a family or three of the critters.  And they leave nice burrowing marks wherever they decide to tunnel.  Ol' red-tail is hunting himself a mole.  And he's so obsessed by this, that Bill and I have given the guy a name....Carl Spackler.

If you don't know who that is, go back and google Caddy Shack or Bill Murray.

Here's a picture of Carl walking around the side yard.  I will let you know if he ever catches that mole.

I feel the need to play that Kenny Loggin's song, "I'm All Right" at this point....

Now let's talk spiders.  Seriously.  Spiders.

I don't freak out at spiders.  Maybe it's because for a long time I lived primarily by myself with the kids, as Bill's job took him out of town most of the time.  If there was a spider to be killed, I had to do it.  Spiders, snakes... anything creepy and slithery really doesn't bother me.  The only bug that really bugs me is a cockroach.

But one in particular spider stole my heart a long time ago...Charlotte... as in Charlotte's Web.  Charlotte, who along with Wilber and Templeton and the Goose and the Sheep kept Sherri the little girl entertained for hours.  I so loved this book that once I found my childhood copy, had it re-bound and am itching to put it in my grandchildren's hands before long.

And how does this figure into quilting?  Well, the High Point Guild is networking with the Jamestown Library this summer to do small wall quilts that depict books.  These quilts will be auctioned off to raise money for the children's section of the library. 

We could either do a quilt that depicted the library's summer reading theme or do one that depicted our favorite book as a child.  Charlotte and her feathered and furry friends immediately came to mind.  And I decided that I wanted to stretch myself as a quilter and do it entirely from scratch.  No patterns.

So I started with a sketch.

This was my first sketch, but I wasn't happy with the ratios or the way the pig was so stylized in comparison to the spider.  So I did another sketch.

I liked this one better.  So I blacked it in, did a transparency and threw it on my overhead  to enlarge it exactly to the dimensions of 16-inches x 20-inches.

Not too bad as far as Charlotte and Wilber goes, but poor Templeton -- when he was enlarged he went from looking like a self-respecting rat to a weasel.  That wouldn't do.

So since you can't improve on a classic, I did a transparency of the cover of the book.

And played with it. 

For a week.

There is no way I am ready to begin to do portraits in quilts, so I knew Fern was out of the question.  Instead I came up with this...

It was a work in progress for a while.  I didn't like the first way the sheep's ears turned out and to be honest, that goose's beak drove me nuts, but here it is at this point....

I wish I would have put some fleece behind the sheep's head and body, but over all I'm happy with it at this stage.  I will work on the lettering for the next couple of weeks and then applique on the eyes and add some embroidered spider webs on it.  The wall with be the last thing that goes on before I quilt it.  I promise I will show the finished product this spring.  We don't have to have them turned into the library until May.  I will be out of place for some of March and April, so I'm happy that I'm this far along with it. 

Love and Stitches,

Sherri