Monday, March 28, 2011

My tame tailless squirrel, Stubbie.

 This is "Stubbie". I did not name her, the neighbor girls did. But the name has stuck to her for three years now. When she first appeared there were two squirrel babies that had no tails. I thought a critter had bitten them off. Sadly, her brother did not survive the first winter. But my Stubbie has made it through three winters! She must have some genetic defect because she and her other babies have each given birth to fluffy tailed and deformed tailed youngin's. Stubbie is tame...real tame. And so is one of last Spring's litter (a fluffy tailed one who had two deformed babies and one normal). Stubbie and Fluffy each take peanuts from our hands. But the fluffy one actually climbs the front door as if she is asking and has tried to climb my leg! NOT ALLOWED!!!!!! Their nails are so sharp. Fluffy has two "rat tailed" babies that made it through the winter (one did not). Honest, their tails are rat skinny with little tiny hairs on them. They are NOT tamed yet. They are both males and have been "mating" each other for the last few weeks. SO funny to watch...they take turns. HONEST!
I have read that squirrels live 3 years or so. I am so glad that Stubbie made it through the winter. I am determined to help her make it through another season. She looks like a little rabbit when she is on the ground.
 I mixed some cotton yarn and some nylon tulle and made a small scrubbie in my kitchen colors.

Really hard to keep under control when cutting. I started using flower head pins to stablize the tulle to cut the remaider. That worked best. Then I made two regular scrubbies out of only tulle. Much better but boy! is that stuff hard on your hands!

 I am designing my own quilt for Daughter #2. She loves Oriental fabric and had decorated her bedroom with this theme. And since she has a new King size bed she deserves a new quilt.
The above photo was last week's sewing...no side panels on yet.
 Side panels added and the flimsy is now 84X88. Now to decide on some borders.

I bought more fabric. This has Kois on it and she loves fish!

5 comments:

JudyCinNC said...

Your oriental quilt for your daughter is going to be gorgeous. She will definitely love it. Judy C

Valspierssews said...

Loved the squirrel story and the quilt is gorgeous. I love the fabric. The koi should look great.

Hannele said...

What a fabulous quilt your oriental one is going to be! Your daughter is lucky to get such a treasure :)

Evelyn aka Starfishy said...

Your daughter is just going to love that Oriental quilt. Great use of a large print fabric and keeping the entire design intact, but adding the interest of pieced blocks too! We used to have a no-tail cat... she would try to chew the tails off her kittens that were born with tails - so we would have to separate the no-tails from the tails. Us kids were given the job of feeding the tailed kittens with an eye dropper until they got bigger. Now we have cats with double front paws! Cheers! Evelyn

Comfort Cove Designs said...

WOW!!! I'm loving that scrap quilt you are making!!!!

I can't wait to see how your oriental quilt turns out!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea