Going Batty Around Here...

This seems to be such a busy time of year.  Summer's coming to an end.  Families are trying to take advantage of the last few days of summer vacation before school starts and everyone is rushing around.  Well not at my house!  I managed to throw my back out about a week and a half ago, so I've been spending the vast majority of the time since then on the couch recuperating.  It has been lazy and more than a little bit boring.  I am ever so grateful for our Netflix subscription.

This has also been a great time to work on hand appliqueing the bats for my Baltimore Halloween quilt.  Back in May, I finally had the top put together and started adding the bats that go around the border.

Baltimore Halloween top - minus the bats!

There are 20 of them - 20 right wings, 20 left wings and 20 bat bodies.  I've been ever so slowly checking them off my list and just today, I finished basting all of the bodies down...

Basting the bat body down in preparation for applique

I even managed to complete one single solitary bat.  It may not look like much, but considering how many hours have gone into this, it's a huge accomplishment!

One completely finished bat!

In fact, if I hadn't thrown my back out, I guess it would easily have taken me another month or more to get to this point.  I just wouldn't have had so many hours to spend working on it.

In other creepy crawly related news, we've been seeing some of the most unusual and largest spiders this year.  The front of our house is covered in ivy and for some reason all of the spiders are trying to build their webs in it.  It's giving me a bit of the heebie jeebies!  (I'm not very fond of spiders.)

This spider was large with bright yellow markings.

Can you see the spider in this tunnel?

I'm sorry the pictures aren't any larger, but I"m sure you can understand my hesitation to get any closer to these creatures than necessary.  I could just picture them taking a flying leap at me and my screaming like a little sissy girl.  With my back, I wouldn't get very far either.

I hope you're having a blessed week!  Until later...

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 

2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)