kool aid!

Overdyed this gray superwash, half of it in black cherry and half in cherry kool aid. I’m thinking it’s for Norma’s red scarf project… but it ended up a little too purple, so I dyed the undyed ends again. In cherry. Because some person bought all the strawberry in Augusta, which is what I’d intended to use.

For the middle photo I knew black cherry was on the left, but now I don’t know what’s what.

more Phaeolus

It just never ends. Last weekend we took the girls for a walk at Alonzo Garcelon Wildlife Mgmt Area, and to look for more dyer’s polypore. Which we found… more than in the last post! We walked down to Spectacle Pond, which was gorgeous!

Today kiddo and I took the girls out behind the airport (which the muckity mucks are calling something else these days), to a spot where we found this fungus last year. Kiddo says “what does it look like” and I tell him and he says “like this?”. And then I say, oh, let’s wander that way, looks interesting over there and he says “these?” “yep”.

I think we’re pretty well stocked now. But if I see more, I’ll probably bring it home and dry it… maybe thinking ahead for fungus trade for other dye mushrooms…

Check out the maze like pattern of the pores!

but you really want to know about the peeing, right?

This was my toilet this week…

Bathroom before (a whopping almost 5 feet by 7, and this is our big one):

Yet another use for duct tape. The sink has a dark towel in it because the drain is not connected, so nobody tosses a glass of water in there at night (or any other time). We were without the sink for almost a month. The shower surround has been taped for maybe 3 or 4 months.

And now, not quite finished, but eminently usable. The toilet actually flushes with one push of the handle (the old one did not)! We found out after we purchased a surround that our tub is 3 inches narrower than most… so we had to go back and get the single style that would fit. Crappy shelf set up, but I found some good suctiony baskets. Oh, and the sink overflow works… the old one never did, and I was always grossed out by what got caught in there.

pigs

I’ve had a hard time lately with salt shakers. The salt just gets glommed in there, even with rice. So a friend gifted me with a bamboo salt pig! She has one and her salt never gets caked. It works great!

more

I forget what else… I got most of a sleeve done on the sweater I’m working on and realized it’s a little baggy… so I started the other one, winging it versus following the pattern. Here’s hoping it is better.

Color first, no?

Look at the surprise this week at work…

This was a “rescue” and after a year or so it has flowered. Must like the window it sits in… but on the day it flowered, I put it right in the middle of my office so I could see it from my desk! The reproductive parts look so interesting!

Just behind my monitors is this somewhat phallic plant, I always forget what it is called…

And in front of my monitors I have a little help…

actual knitting

Vanille (ravelry link)

That second photo is wicked fuzzy… sorry! I am almost done w/ the body, and then on to the sleeves.

mushroom madness continues

Look what DH brought home from a day in the woods…

Two more big Phaeolus! I might over-dye the yarn I did the other day. He made some comment that I should dry them so they don’t mold, and to not dissuade him from getting me more, I’ve chopped it up and spread it out on a cookie sheet that I put in my car.

I have some ideas about collecting enough of this and that mushroom and doing a real experiment.

But before that I am thinking to overdye some grey wool with koolaid for Norma’s red scarf project… pics when I have them.

Skype!

I skyped this morning with a young woman in Australia. What a blast! She’s from Barcelona and misses speaking in Spanish, and I want to practice because I forget so much. It worked really well (once I figured out how to get my microphone switched to the webcam)… some Spanish, some English, some Spanglish. I found her in Ravelry, in a Spanish speaking knitter’s group. We’ll do it again, maybe next weekend.

Yesterday I decided to just go for it and used the fresh Dyer’s polypore, along with a couple of dried specimens, to dye up a bunch of wool. Since it’s all a grand experiment and I’m not worrying about repeating the result, I didn’t do any testing.

Soaked the wool, , and added “some” ammonia to drop the pH of the wool (pre-mordant).

Got all the fungus so I could take their photo,

And then broke them up into bits and put them in a big pot,

Boiled this about an hour. Then I put the wool, some of the ammonia water, and some fresh water into a pot and slowly brought to the same temp as the dye. Dumped the wool in. Boiled another 45 minutes or so. Let cool some 20 minutes, then lifted out. Then rinsed once in hot water, then once in hot vinegar water, then once in hot water (since the wool was still wicked hot).

I’m sure this isn’t “how to do it”… there were bits of fungus in the wool…

I had six balls of Ram’s Wool (ravelry link, turns out this is a Paton’s yarn), and two of Alefoss/Reynolds Ice Wool (Another Ravelry link). I put the Ice Wool in the afterbath.

And the results? Because that’s what you really want to see, right?

more than you may want to see…

I have an mri in a week or two for the anosmia/phantosmia thing, and the doc asked me to get the cd of the one I had in November… so I did, and I got to look at the pics. Way WAY cool to look inside my own head. I’m seeing some potential Halloween masks here,

They’re really kind of crazy to look at, series of images that you scroll through, quickly, and it looks like a movie. Do you think I’m ready for Hollywood???

O-M-G, Flickr has changed things since I last posted, and well, after 2 glasses of wine, it was a shock!

Went to a mushroom foray with DH today and I found some interesting fungus! Most exciting for me was the dyer’s polypore that I spotted and collected (…oooh! just added shroomworks blog to my reader!). Sadly I heard today that the weight of fungus to wool is about five (dried fungus) to one (wool). Better keep saving the stuff… (…gack, flickr changes…)

Butt F’n uguly, eh? But it will make for some lovely wool!

Here’s everything that was collected today (fuzzy photo, sorry…)

We were at Fieldstone Gardens in Vassalboro… What a great place!

For dinner, we had an omelet with some black trumpets DH collected yesterday,

black trumpets

We had these last year on pizza… they were pretty good in the omelet, but the anosmia/phantosmia thing has affected my taste somewhat.

other stuff…

Last Sunday we went for a very quick kayak on the river. I think the fish were making fun of me… I’d hear a splash, but never saw anything much. DH says he saw a sturgeon… harumph! At least I saw some last year!

recent knitting

a headband…

details in ravelry

Working on Vanille, for me… pics soon.

And I got some spanish tapes/cds from the library!

So today’s Ten on Tuesday, 10 things to bring on Vacation, is great! I’m thinking about going to Spain, maybe next year, with a girlfriend… the idea is just starting to hatch about in my mind… She’s ready, and is an experienced traveler. But I’ve only been to Canadia and I’m not so sure that counts! (hahahahaha)

1. I haven’t seen anybody say they’d bring their OB, and even though I’m hoping I’m done with all that by then, I’ll bring some…
2. knitting
3. string to use as line to dry laundry so I don’t have to bring too much
4. little dictionary, because I’m sure my High School Spanish will get the workout of its life
5. maybe I’ll pack one bag inside another, in case I find some fabulous boots, or something
6. camera, duh
7. maybe I’ll buy one of those little netbooks

I don’t know what all else! Seven’s a good start though, isn’t it???