Great Egrets!

Another likely candidate for a wildlife portfolio.

Just the shear number of Egrets at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is impressive, but when they line up like this it's amazing. (from the archives 9/2008)

5-Star Wren

I'm a little surprised at how good (I think) this picture came out. The new camera is exceeding expectations - quick and smart. This little guy "posed" for less than a minute, but I was able to make two (out of three) respectable photos - even one with flash fill. The wren will likely be the cover of my newly inspired (yet to be created) wildlife portfolio.

Old hobby, cool new tool.

I was able to sweet-talk Santa into coming early this year - I'm such a lucky guy, and very excited.

My new toy, the Nikon P7000, is Nikon's top of the line Coolpix compact digital camera. No more whining about not being able to "make" the picture that I think I'm seeing in my head. This little bad boy does it all and more (it will warn you if "it thinks" someone blinked). It's going to take a little while to digest the owner's manual and learn to think like this hand held optical computing device does....

An Ideal Warp

Yeah! We finally got the Ideal loom at the County Museum dressed up with a new warp. This is the first of many rag rugs we will be able to weave on this warp. As you look at the dates of previous posts, it becomes obvious that this (378 thread) warp took us a while. But, when you consider we are only working at it about 3 hours a week (almost every Thursday morning).... hey, we're having fun - fun shouldn't be rushed. And, we did wind on about 25 yards of warp, so we'll be able to weave rugs for about a year or so before we need to do this again. That's a lot of fun.

On another front, it's been pointed out to me that I've been a slacker-blogger and haven't been keeping (significant) others informed about the myriad of (potentially) interesting things that I've been doing in the interim. I am compelled and inspired to do better for all concerned.

Hobby # n+1: Butterflies

On our latest get-a-way to Chincoteague Island and beyond, it was pretty hard not to get caught up in the excitement of the ongoing butterfly migration. Monarchs, Buckeyes and numerous others (yet to be identified) were, well, numerous. On the beach, you would notice a dozen or so Buckeye butterflies, moving as if on a cosmic conveyor belt Southward, replaced every minute or so by another dozen... for hours at time, for the several days we were there - the math is a mind bender.

This is a Buckeye fueling up at Cape May Point State Park before continuing South on the long “non-stop” flight over the Delaware Bay.

Time to get Warped!

This is an exciting time at the County Museum! We are all set up and ready to wind a new sectional warp on our newly donated Ideal Loom (circa 1930). Everyone was so taken by the multicolored warp that had been on the loom when donated that we decided to honor the donor and reproduce that warp as closely as possible with the materials at hand. The original warp had featured primary and secondary colors - we opted for a more Autumnal pallet by substituting a brown and salmon-orange for the red and blue.

There is something about the geometry, symmetry and repeating motifs of all my weaving toys that just wags my tail.

This sequence (section) will be repeated 14 times across the width of the warp.

The Big Reveal

Yesterday was a big day at the Museum, we revealed nine completed pieces for all to see. There were two rugs and two placemats on the Ideal Loom and a set of placemats and a table runner on the old loom.

I thought it was pretty cleaver of us to squeeze two placemats out of the remnants of the multicolor warp.

Fred is inspecting the placemats to make sure they are all the same size - look closely - yep, two inches short of the mark. Hey it's a child size placemat - that kind of thoughtful design touch would cost more anywhere else.