Visitors

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this hen turkey and her chicks off & on for several weeks on my morning walk. When I first saw them mom had 5 babies. I’m sure she started with more — maybe as many as a dozen. Baby wild turkeys are easy prey for lots of animals. Mama lost them, one after the other, and now she’s down to just 3.

I was lucky that they visited my house the other day. I had to take shots through my window & screen (ergo the fuzziness), and even so, you can see that mom was constantly on guard duty. I’m sure she could hear my footsteps through the house. I hope mom & babies make it through the current hunting season, and that the winter isn’t too bad for them.

I got KM & SB’s wraps pressed, labelled, and mailed. Before they left the house I took a few shots to share. Here you can see some of the limited ‘pooling’ of the colors with SB’s hand painted weft.

And KB’s wrap as it hangs over my ironing board.

Here they are side by side. The difference is noticeable at a glance.

But not as different as with my hot-off-the-loom bookmarks. I needed to weave a few dozen for my upcoming show. I decided I’d break with my tradition & warp some up with black cotton. I usually make my bookmarks from 5/2 warp sett at 24 ends per inch (EPI), and I only had 10/2 in black, so after some experimentation I sett them at 36 ends per inch. It was a short warp & I only got 8 bookmarks out of it after my testing. Then I warped up with my 5/2 white & wove 19 more.

Here are 2 bookmarks side by side. Although a different size warp, different sett, and different weaving pattern (same weft yarn), the real difference in the two is the warp color. The orange weft looks so different on these bookmarks.

But check out these two! I had some of the hand painted cotton left from SB’s wrap and used it on each of these bookmark warps. The colors really pop on that black warp, don’t they?

Pretty dramatic, isn’t it?!

I’ll be interested in seeing my customers’ reactions to the black warp. I’m guessing I’ll be making more of them.