Amanita muscaria

I'm working on another felted mushroom rattle project for my friend Gretchen. She's commissioned four rattles and given me free rein on mushroom decisions. That means whatever mushrooms intrigue me, be they edible or  be they highly poisonous, are up for grabs. Oh, please let them be highly poisonous! So, I visited my local library for some mushroom guidebooks. I came home with Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest and The Mushroom Book: How to identify, gather, and cook wild mushrooms and other fungi. It's good to embark on a little research, right? 

Now, as I've mentioned before, I think mushrooms are both amazing and terrifying. Quote: "I'm all for good bacteria keeping my gut organs in order, but I don't want anything bursting (a word, which in the context of fungus, cannot be beneficial for anything but the fungus) from my body and fruiting (which is what a fungus likes to do before it pops its spore top)." Yeah, I'm looking at you, Cordyceps--not my favorite fungus in the universe. TRUTH. But the Amanita muscaria is one of my favorites. It's probably one of the most recognizable mushrooms, with its red cap and white spots, which is a good thing because the Amanita is poisonous. So, here's A. muscaria, of the orange-capped variety.

According to Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest, the orange-capped variety of

A. muscaria is typically found in the leaf litter around spruce and pine trees. Noted.

I still need to fill in the gills a bit because some orange has poked through, but otherwise, it's basically finished. 

One down, three to go!