Charlie’s Adventure is a story I wrote along with a quilt I made.   Charlie is my sweet little orange kitty who, contrary to everyone’s belief, has a sweet tooth that would rival anyone.  He will do anything to get a lick of ice-cream, watermelon, sweetened cream, or anything else sweet you can think of.

One day, Charlie learned that on All Hallows Eve,  if he puts on a wizard’s hat and a bow tie and sits very very quietly amongst the Jack-O-Lanterns, magic leaves will come and carry him to the Land of the Seven Sisters who would give him lots and lots of sweets to eat.  So he came to me and asked if I would make him a hat and a bow tie.  I was happy to oblige.

As the evening approached, he donned his starry hat and bow tie, smartly walked outside, sat down in the pumpkin patch and waited very patiently.

Charlie has a very bossy sister and two very clueless brothers.  They all love to play with Charlie.  His sister specially loves Charlie and keeps a wary eye on him at all times.   Charlie excitedly told her all about his plan.  She didn’t really believe him, but she was not about to let him sit outside all alone either.  Who knew what peril would befall her brother!  She was also not going to leave the other two out of sight, because then she would have to spend the rest of the night looking for all of them if they got lost.  So the bossy sister pushed the disgruntled brothers out the door and all of them surreptitiously waited a little distance away from little Charlie as the sun sank below the horizon.

They waited and waited and waited some more.  Then, when everything had gone quiet, all the kids had gone home after their Trick-Or-Treat runs and the Jack-O-Lanterns were about to go out, they heard a rustle and a swoosh.  Suddenly they were off, all four of them, carried away on gigantic leaves!  These were no ordinary leaves, of course!  On each one of them, a different adventure awaited the little kitties.  They stayed together, hopped around and rolled from leaf to leaf, played, and had amazing fun.

All this time, while they were busy playing, the leaves carried them onward and upward to the Land of the Seven Sisters.  By the time the little kitties got there, they were exhausted.  They sat in the midst of stars and each had their favourite food to eat while watching the Jack-O-Lantern-lit Earth turning down below.  Charlie had his most favourite sweets to eat that day and nobody was going to stop him.  Slowly as the night got deeper, they fell asleep on top of each other and were carried gently and silently back down to earth, down to their soft, warm beds.

I had a wonderful time drawing, creating the layout, and designing the patterns for Charlie’s Adventure.  I definitely had just as much fun as my little kitties.  Charlie was all right with sharing the story with all of you as long as he and his beloved Papa could have the quilt. 

Now I am really glad to have finished the quilt so that they can huddle under it together and dream of sweet things. 

Charlie sat and supervised as I wrote the story.   Actually, he was trying to convince me to give him some sweet treats.  He was most disappointed when that didn’t work, “Nobody at home ever gives me anything!”  So he went off to bed to dream about his special All Hallows Eve adventure while snoozing with his pumpkin.  Supposedly the pumpkin gives him sweet dreams.

He has always been the perpetual kitten of our home and continues to make us laugh with his antics.   I was working on another large painting which I unfortunately had to restart after many hours of work, causing a fair bit of disgruntlement.  As I have always wanted to illustrate this story, I put that painting aside to work on storyboarding Charlie’s Adventure.   Storyboarding is usually done with rough sketches and no color, but I really wanted to play with my watercolors. 

So, I did this very rough and quick watercolor sketch on a 3″x5″ card.   It was hard for me to not add any detail, but I reminded myself that this is only a sketch, and I can add detail to my heart’s content on the larger painting.  I am really looking forward to continuing with the illustrations and then turning that into a book.  That will be my adventure!

Whether you read this story for the first time today or re-read it, I do hope you enjoyed it!  Wishing Happy Samhain to the ones who celebrate and Happy Autumn to everyone!

Until next time,
-Soma

P.S.  I always get asked – the patterns are available in my shop.

I am linking up with the linky parties on my Links page.  Please pay a visit to some of them.  Hosts of linky parties – please grab a photo of you choice for your party.  Thank you for hosting!