As the worms turn (into silk, hopefully)

Well, the worms continue to grow. They are fat and juicy, several have begun to look "waxy," but show no desire to cocoon. They seem perfectly happy to just keep eating. thank goodness I have found two additional sources of mulberry leaves!  The picture above is from Sunday. The neighbors did a spectacular job feeding them while I was away and they were several times larger than before I left.  The pictures below are from this morning when I realized how much more  they have grown, the largest ones now measuring at 2.5 inches.  Some of them have gone to the expected white color, while many other seem to be retaining their stripes. I don't know if that is a varietal thing or pure contrariness on the part of the worms.
 

Creepy Crawlies in the kitchen

My silk worms hatched! I put them out almost two weeks ago and had decided that maybe they had frozen in my refrigerator. I have them hanging in a basket by the kitchen window, since many blogs indicated that early morning light was good for them. I double checked them last night and wow there were all these little worms. So cute.


This is going to be a family experiment in sericulture, since I am traveling a lot in the next 6 weeks.

First up is the long weekend at the Tropical Hand-weavers Guild retreat at Lake Yale. I'm taking a card or tablet weaving class to go along with my current obsession with inkle weaving. Then DH and I are taking an actual vacation together, like to the same place at the same time. It's been years! We are going to the John C. Campbell folks school. He is taking a wood turning class and I am going to play with glass and blow torches while (hopefully) learning how to make glass beads.