Peanut & Purls (& Chanterelles!)

In case you weren't aware, it's Chanterelle season in the Pacific Northwest. Lucky for me, I live about 10 minutes away from The Evergreen State College where there is prime real estate for mushroom hunting. Last week Christine and I went into the woods, refusing to emerge until we were loaded down with fungi...

Amanita kaleidoscope

I found these bizarrely yellow and green mushroom kaleidoscopes at Target last Christmas. I do believe
they were a dollar. Monika was there, so she can vouch. Not too shabby, except the color is, like I said,
bizarre. I acknowledge that mushrooms come in all sorts of colors, but these just looked like barf to me.
No, thank you. So, I decided to get out my paints and make these mushrooms look a bit more appealing. 

mushaboom

Amanita muscaria

Amanita pantherina

Well, I've reached the end of the custom mushroom rattle project for Gretchen. It's been fun, and I like to think I've learned a little something about various forest floor dwellers. According to my trusty Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest, early spring is the perfect time of year to find the Amanita pantherina. Featuring "conspicuous whitish warts and patches on the cap"(Um, gross. It looks cute, but never has anyone read the words "conspicuous whitish warts" with pleasure.), this Amanita is yet another non-consumable mushroom. POISONOUS. I mean, you can consume Amanita pantherina if, for instance, you're interested in its psychoactive properties; however, in no way am I suggesting that you do so. Please believe that I do not want you to experiment with mushrooms...unless that experiment involves a really tremendous wild mushroom soup and you absolutely know what you're doing. 

Four down...and project complete! 

Interested in the other felted mushroom rattles?

Agaricus augustus
Coprinellus micaceus
Amanita muscaria
the original Amanita

Agaricus augustus

Meet Agaricus augustus, aka The Prince. Mine is a juvenile, so the cap is rather small compared to that of the adult Agaricus, which has a nice wide umbrella shape. But this is only a baby, so it has a squat baby cap, as it should. According to my Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest guide, Agaricus augustus can be found all along the Pacific Coast and it smells like almonds. Almonds, people, almonds. And guess what? This is yet another edible mushroom! Children everywhere can gnaw on this mushroom specimen (rattle or real) with no fears of psychoactive effects. Yea!

Three down, one to go!

Interested in the other felted mushroom rattles?

Coprinellus micaceus
Amanita muscaria

the original Amanita

Coprinellus micaceus

This is the second in my series of four rattles for Gretchen. I'm steering away from poisonous this time around.

Yes, this is actually an edible mushroom: Coprinellus micaceus. According to Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest,

the Coprinellus "grows in large groups and clusters on hardwood stumps, buried roots, and other organic debris."

Hmm, sounds pretty findable, right? And Mushrooms of the PNW calls it a "good edible species."

Hopefully, it doesn't look strikingly similar to some deadly mushroom. Beware, amateur mycologists!

Two down, two to go!

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!

baby cardy

My friend, Rose, is going to have her first baby (a boy!) at the end of August. I wanted to make a little knitted gift, but didn't have a ton of time. Luckily, I found a project that was super-sweet and knitted up really fast. Dream come true, right? 

This yarn is a dream come true! Catherine helped me pick it out. She swears by baby alpaca. 

I would pet a baby alpaca right now. So very soft.

I felted a toadstool rattle to go along with the sweater. 

Little fungus stem and underbelly.

All nestled together.

The back, arms, and sides are all knit together, and the rib stitch collar is knit by picking up stitches along the edge. Then you just seam together the edges and you're good to go. Easy-peasy! The pattern is free on Ravelry. You can also find it here. The pattern doesn't give you any guidance about what stitches to use for the seams, but I decided the mattress stitch was the way to go for the sides (Knitting Help has a great tutorial on mattress stitch) and a horizontal seam was the way to go for finishing the sleeves (find an OK tutorial here).  If you do it right, the seams will be invisible from the outside.


Still need a little more help? Knitsimple also has tons of info on all types of seaming. Highly recommend. Happy knitting!

Wrapped up and ready to go!

knit-wit

This evening I got into a fight with a telemarketer. The call ended when he hung up on me. It's not like it was all my fault--I thought he was a jerk and I'm sure he left the conversation thinking the same about me. I hope his night gets better...mine did. I ate an enchilada!

Today is the knitting edition of my project retrospective. I should probably preface this by saying that I'm sort of a knitting hack. Yes, I can make stuff and it looks decent. (Catherine says I have nice stitches.) But I blatantly ignore important knitting rules, like gauges and blocking. I'm sure I've mentioned this before. Anyway, you should know that anything I make is pretty simple--some of it might look fancy, but the process is almost never that complex. 

Recently, I knitted myself that slouchy copycat hat and made a pair of hand warmers for Mom, but since I'm lucky enough to have a couple friends with little ones, I also get the immense pleasure of knitting for kids! (Does that sentence seem sarcastic? It isn't.) There are tons of terrific baby projects out there, so if you know anyone with a baby or toddler, you should definitely make them a few items. You won't regret it, and they, being the nice people I'm sure they are, will be very grateful (or will put on a convincing show of gratitude--oh, you'll be fooled all right). So, here are some knitted gifts...

Baby washcloths. Now, who wants ice cream?

A toadstool rattle for Zoey.

Quite simple to make, I assure you.

A striped blankie for Kyra.

And one for Zoey.

Hooded sweater for Zoey, stacked up against my
Lemony Snicket books.

Those are nice stitches.

But I can't sew a button worth a damn.

I'm currently working on something for Kyra (and will post it in a couple of weeks), so don't worry that she's falling behind on the knitted gifts. In the meantime, if you're looking to learn how to knit or searching for a new project to tackle, I recommend checking out The Purl Bee. Catherine steered me towards this site a couple of years ago, and the washcloth, blanket, and toadstool rattle patterns all came from The Purl Bee. They have great tutorials, excellent (free) projects for all skill levels, and beautiful pictures of everything. Plus, they're into more than just knitting--you'll also find info and project suggestions on crocheting, sewing and quilting, felting, and embroidery. They have you covered on all fronts. What are you waiting for? You should really go there now...

Fungus among us!

Here's the thing about me, mushrooms, and their kin. I think they're awesome. But, I also think they're disgusting. I guess I'd just forgotten this fact between my walk on Friday and six minutes ago when I opened my library book (The Kingdom Fungi: The Biology of Mushrooms, Molds, and Lichens) to browse the photos in the hopes some of the specimens of the Spokane woods might appear in the pages. Yeah, I made it like 4 seconds before remembering Cordyceps (which I first learned about watching Planet Earth with Rachel and Dan {an experiment in wonderment and terror}. And if you're not familiar with the parasite Cordyceps, watch this video and then prepare to never go outside again. Also, I dare you not to almost puke.). I should have anticipated what I would find inside a book with a terrifying penis fungus on the front cover and a fungus commonly called starfish stinkhorn on the back. There, I've said it. 

Seems innocent enough, right? Wrong! 

You probably know (or if you don't, you should) that I'm not a squeamish individual. Any light squeamishness I encounter is usually replaced by curiosity and a pleasant feeling of disgust. It's just how I roll. But this book forces me to confront one of the things I fear the most: something yucky growing inside my body. 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).


And for the record, I opened The Kingdom Fungi again, like 2 minutes ago, and I had to close it because it gave me a physical chill. I shuddered. For real. How am I going to fill my brain with all this fungus knowledge when I can't keep the book open for more than 47 seconds at a stretch? It's a dilemma.

But I do want to mention that the fact this book scares the crap out of me does not, in any way, detract from my respect for Steven L. Stephenson, the author (who appears, from his book jacket picture, to be a very nice, fungus-forward man) and conductor of slime mold research on six continents including "the polar regions of both the Arctic and Subantarctic." And I realize that the previous sentence (and, honestly, the author's name) might seem like an exercise in facetiousness on my part, but I meant it in all sincerity, truly.


Also, I feel like I should tell you that the scientific name for the largest group of slime molds is Myxomycetes. If I knew how to pronounce it, I think it would sound lovely. (Wait! Internet can tell me how to pronounce it! "Mix-o-my-seats." That totally makes sense. That's something I could have sounded out.  Why didn't I?)

And now, the fungi.

Maybe you're thinking: Oh, David the Gnome could have lived under this. 
But he couldn't, actually.
He rode a fox named Swift, and was, in all reality, too big for a fungus house.

This fungus should be called the ghost nipple.

Always in the leaf litter, up to no good.

Intricate and beautiful. But would I touch it? No. No. Never.

I saw this mushroom and thought, suppurating, and took this picture.

I happened to see a picture of this in the book.
It is called, fittingly, the coral fungus.

These are pixie-cup lichens. I know that much at least. Hey, remember when Sarah first enters the labyrinth, all the little eyeball
wall clingers follow her and go "ooh-h-ee-ee-oh-h-h" and so on? And this is so off topic, but are you aware of all the fan-fiction
 trailers for Labyrinth on youtube? I hope you just clicked on that link to watch some!

There are a couple other things I want to mention while we're on the subject of fungi. First: It's almost the end of the fungus post and I've opened up The Kingdom Fungi more times than I thought possible--enough times, in fact, to realize that there is a chapter on fossil fungi with pictures. Things are looking up. And second: The opening paragraph of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle (A recommendation from Dan, by the way. {Two unrelated mentions in one post? Seems unlikely, yet here it is.}) has a mushroom mention. It is also one of my favorite opening paragraphs ever (or at least in the last two years). Which brings me to my two-pronged attack for ending this post without being in mortal fear of mushrooms.


1) from We Have Always Lived in the Castle
"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead."


2) And because I filled this post with so many words I'm not down with at all, I'm going to end it with several words I enjoy quite a lot.


Cellar. Labyrinth. Crocodilian.


Yes, labyrinth is one of my favorite words. But I think you'd agree that even independent of the movie, it is a really awesome word. And there's one more word that I love and always think about, but I've forgotten it at the moment. How can that happen?

Cordyceps. That's how.

They ain't even old timey!

I bought a little paint-by-number at an estate sale in Olympia several weeks ago--for a dollar--and I meant to post something about it once I figured out where it needed to go. Well, it's finally up there...on the bathroom wall.


Hello, 1941. How are you today?

In conjunction with my calico rose wallpaper, I feel like this paint-by-number has officially transported my bathroom to a farmhouse in the 1940s. Hey, I don't mind. I'm more than happy to hang wash on the line (except I can't because one of my neighbors has had the same blue sheet hanging out there for a week), and to shell peas on the front porch, (I don't grow peas), and tie my hair in a kerchief (if I only knew how), and sew my clothes (not even close), and wear my husband's work boots to the chicken shed (I don't actually have a husband).


I will not, however, pluck a chicken. Any breed of foul really. I don't think I'd like the sound of the feathers being pulled out. I've never plucked a chicken, or listened as anyone plucked a chicken, but I'm fairly certain I know what it would sound like and I want none of that in my 1940s bathroom. I could maybe kill a chicken though. Maybe? As long as I didn't have to do any de-feathering because that would be gross.

Now why didn't they paint number eighty?

I suppose now would be the time to say that the paint-by-number is probably circa 1960-70 rather than 1940. If this really were a 1940s farmhouse, the paint-by-number would be a picture cut from Saturday Evening Post or something. See how neatly I've romanticized the past?