I’d like to introduce you all to Squirrelfriend. She lives in the large oak tree just off our balcony. Sometimes she likes to come to our door to ask for peanuts, but she also loves my strawberry plant. We have come to a mutual agreement about the strawberries: she eats everything she can find, and I get to keep the strawberries she can’t reach.
We enjoy her visits, even if she only deems us worthy of a visit once in awhile. In the summer she’d visit us (okay, really the strawberry plant, but I like to pretend it was for us) every few days. It’s just coincidental that it takes a few days for new strawberries to ripen on the plant, right? Sometimes we won’t see her for weeks because she’s too busy off being a squirrel. But this time of year we’re seeing her a lot – mostly because she’s digging in my potted plants to hide her hoard. It’s a good thing I’m not overly attached to those plants. She shows up late winter too, and that’s the most exciting time of year for us. Because she’s more hungry, she’ll sometimes even take nuts straight out of our hand! The kids love that.
An obviously younger squirrel has started to visit our deck too. We think it’s one of her babies from the litter she had earlier this year. You want real entertainment? Watch baby squirrels playing with each other. Sometimes they even do back flips! It’s highly entertaining. (Well, at least for us, but it doesn’t take much to amuse us.) My oldest has dubbed this new squirrel Squirrelfriend Jr.
He has really taken a liking to Squirrelfriend. Last year he even dressed up as her for Halloween.
Because he loves her so much I decided to make him his very own Squirrelfriend t-shirt.
I made sure to have her holding one of her favorite foods and even included her notched ear (you have to look closely to see it).
But I couldn’t just make one shirt – I made one for each family member! We can now be a squirrel family!
I made these by ice dyeing some shirts green, then used my hand carved squirrel linocut and some fabric block printing ink to stamp Squirrelfriend onto the tees!
This was a pretty fun project! I’m already trying to come up with some more designs to print!
