porcupine roach – revisited

These porcupine roaches are absolutely gorgeous. The small one is actually a turkey beard roach made out of turkey beard and deer hair.

These headdresses are made by Dancer's Choice which is aptly named.

Porcupine roaches are hard to make. Sounds like the maker sources the porcupine hides and gathers the porcupine guard hair and quills himself. The hardest part of roach making is sorting the hair into the different lengths. Another hard part is the base. If it's a premade cotton base, obviously it's not hard. A traditional base though is made out of deer tail hair that's been tied to a cord and then trimmed short and then sewed to make the base.

The rest of the time consuming build is tying and then sewing. It's the shape — where it spreads and how it tapers —  is what really makes a well made porcupine roach stand out (although flat or upright is a style choice with flatter/spread roaches for grass and traditional dancers while straight and fancy dancers may prefer more upright roaches).

I would guess these porcupine roaches would run into the $500-$1000 range depending on length but probably best to ask the maker. Usual lengths are 15" – 24" depending on a dancer's style (e.g. Fancy vs Grass dance). Really beautiful work on these porcupine roaches.

HP M281fdw printer

HP 281fdw

We're liking this HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M281fdw printer. We're coming from a Canon Pixma MP530 that we've had since December of 2006. The Canon stopped printing well and we haven't been able to scan documents for a good 4 years or so. Anyway, it was time.

This new HP printer is nice at only $350 especially for a color laser printer which would've been $2000 in 1998. The build quality looks good, print quality is sharp and bright and not "inky" (feels baked). It takes a minute or two to start up but the printing is fast. Haven't played around with the rest of the features like fax or scan. The wireless printing was easy to set up and works with MacOS (High Sierra/Mojave) seamlessly.

The printer is actually a good size, it's a little tall but not too wide and good depth to fit on our credenza. Would totally recommend this printer. Wirecutter has some good printer reviews if you're looking for some more options.