You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Wildlife’ category.
I belong to a small group of quilters known as the Fyber Gypsies (made up of members of the Rocky Mountain Creative Quilters guild) and this spring we set ourselves a challenge: we picked two crayons from a paper bag and one word from a bunch of slips. The goal was to make a quilt using those colors and to look to the word for further inspiration.
I got pink and black crayons, colors I rarely use, and my word was “embellish”.
As with most quilts, my initial ideas were very different from the final product. At first, I though of making animals that were either pink or black and then adding an embellishment-worthy accessory in the opposite color, such as a pink pig in a black top hat or a penguin in a tutu. The animals would be cute, simplified shapes, and the overall effect would be whimsical. I would make four separate blocks, each with a different animal on it.
Once I started sketching, the plan changed completely. I found some Adélie penguin pictures (a very cute, round penguin species) and made some drawings, thinking that I would like to try using the piecing techniques I learned from Ruth McDowell in a class I took with her over 10 years ago. But I had to enlarge my penguin to about one foot tall so that the smallest pattern pieces wouldn’t be too hard to work with, and I needed the finished quilt to be a manageable size if I was going to meet the deadline we’d set for ourselves. So I went from four animals to one.
My paper pattern for Pink-guin
My pattern has turned the original drawing into straight lines, but you should be able to tell that the drawing I came up with was rather realistic. My tutu idea no longer worked, so I decided to use pink fabrics for the white I would need for the penguin and the snow/ice behind him in order to meet the color requirements of the challenge. I auditioned fabrics and started putting the quilt together.
Fabrics selected and ironed onto my pattern pieces, and construction has begun.
About halfway through the construction
Quilt top is finished (just needs a border)
Once the entire quilt was completed, including the quilting and the binding, I added beads for an eye and then decorated the pink frame with beads in order to include a little more embellishment. Here’s the finished piece:
Pink-guin, an art quilt by Kit Dunsmore
We drive right by the Fossil Creek Reservoir every time we go to Denver. I had no idea what a gorgeous spot it was until I went there with my parents after dinner one night.
Fossil Creek Reservoir
The lake is down slope from a large prairie, which is full of wildlife. The bunnies were particularly bold.
Desert Cottontail
As with all of our little adventures, we took lots of pictures. Dad spent some time trying to get a good shot of the western meadowlark serenading us.
The meadowlark is the tiny dot on the pole to the right
Because of the water, the area attracts lots of birds. At the west end of the trail is a blind, where you can sit and watch the birds on the lake. Inside are tables and seats, plus lots of labeled pictures of the birds you might see.
Mom and Dad view the lake from the blind
My attempts at bird photos did not work out that night — everything was too far away. But we saw quite a few species, including a gadwall mother with her brood. The excited babies swam in circles like wind-up toys. I did manage to get some pictures of the field full of sunflowers that lies just up the slope from the lake.
Common Sunflowers
The most amazing part of our evening was the sunset, which would not quit. My picture hardly does it justice. I can’t wait to see what my father does with all the versions he took of this:
Sunset over the Rockies
Tomorrow: Another amazing sunset in Colorado
My parents’ visit to Colorado inspired us to visit some of the parks and natural areas in our own backyard. The result was that we discovered some treasures we will be visiting regularly, now that we know they are there. Only a week after our first hike up to Arthur’s Rock in Lory State Park, we were back with my parents in tow to walk along the nature trail and marvel at the wildflowers and the birds.
The trail starts off through a meadow that has banks of wildflowers in it.
A field full of Mexican Hat
Since it’s in the foot hills, many of the flowers had already gone to seed, but were interesting to look at nevertheless.
Mystery Pods (anyone know what this is?)
Only a few trees were growing in the meadow, although a little stream trickles out of the hills here. This one is clearly done growing.
Birds kept flying over us. A couple of hawks were chasing each other up and down the line of hills. Dad took a slew of pictures and got some nice ones. I also managed to get one with my little camera. (Note: the secret to this close-up is cropping instead of down-sizing the original.)
Red-tailed Hawk
The trail starts to wind its way up into a canyon, and new flowers could be found there.
Wild Rose
Before we knew it, it was baking hot and time for lunch. We didn’t hike far because we weren’t moving very fast, but the small section of the trail that we saw was exquisite, and excellent material for a family with cameras in their hands.
Tomorrow: Fossil Creek Reservoir
Our day in the mountains was full of wildlife. When we weren’t busy seeing big mammals, we enjoyed the birds and the small animals of the woods. Dad and Kurt got a lot more bird pictures than I did, but I still managed to catch a few. While Mom and I sat at a picnic table by Lily Lake, a song sparrow landed right in front of us and sang long enough for me to snap a picture.
Song sparrow
Another Lily Lake show-off was a ground squirrel who has clearly been fed in the past. He came out and posed for me.
Later, when we were searching Rocky Mountain National Park for elk, a stellar jay landed in a tree right next to us, and we all took pictures of him. Unfortunately, the memory card in my camera maxed out right then. I only got two shots of him.
Tomorrow: plant life that caught my eye (and wound up in my camera).
And I don’t mean people. We had phenomenal luck, helped by the fact that we were on the road early and spent a long day (12 hours) in the mountains. The first thing we saw were Big Horn Sheep, right by the road. I was on the wrong side of the car, but still got a decent look as well as a few pictures. (Thank you, zoom lens.)
Big horn sheep, right by the road
Another sheep, just up the hill from us
Later, as we were hiking into Long Lake, everyone we passed kept telling us to look for the moose. They were “just ahead”, “not that far” and “right on the trail”. We had chosen the Long Lake hike because a gentle quarter-mile walk brings you to the lake and meadow surrounding it, with a great view of the stream and surrounding mountains. But our wild moose chase turned the walk into something more like a mile hike, which Mom and Dad found especially difficult because, as Dad noticed more than once, “They need more oxygen up here.”
He was really really really big. If it weren't for the drop off between us, he would have been too close, too.
Totally by chance, I got the best look at the moose, and possibly the best picture. The others were still coming up the trail when I was thinking “Man, is he BIG” and pushing the button. One of the other people who was nearby and taking pictures got a little too close, and the moose decided to move off. Fortunately, he headed down the trail towards my family, so that they got to see him as he walked through a meadow and into the forest.
Disgusted moose heading into the woods
Having seen two of the big mammals of the mountains, Kurt and I wanted to score a third — elk. We see them all the time when we are in the Estes Park area, so we were hopeful. But despite staying later than planned and driving into more remote parts of Rocky Mountain National Park, the best we could do was a mule deer.
We didn't see her until we got out of the car...
At least she had the decency to be right in the parking lot where we couldn’t miss her.
Tomorrow: a little little wildlife.
