Wednesday, November 26, 2008

oops

here is the site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVRfVEONxJQ

A must see

Found this a must see, beautiful work and a lot of work...the women were amazing to watch , never again will I complain about carrying a few colors...lol

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Mycelium blossoms still abound

Loving this new stitch, easy yet looks like I'm a very good knitter, just my type of mindless knitting....Faggot stitch, I am in love....

Not much posting lately as I have been working towards two Xmas fairs here, and so am busy labeling (not my favourite job) and then of course the sun was out so I was in the woods gathering the sanguinea and semi sanguinea like a mad fool...I would go for an supposed hour and three hours later emerge from the woods bags full of dyers mushrooms...I know the first frost will do them in so I have to gather now.

Will be doing a lot more dyeing after the fairs and have lots of dried dyer mushrooms to experiment with..even some blue tooth fungus..and some phelledon...very exciting.
And more on the newsy front Jenny Dean, author of a few of my favourite natural dyeing reference books, has a blog. http://www.jennydean.co.uk/wordpress/index.php and she has some great posts already. One on woad dyeing which I intend to do next year as I just received some woad seeds from Germany..I will trade her for Weld seeds.
So I will post more pics later, and have some "fair" stories to tell. Let the mycelium spread and the mushrooms bloom on...

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Dermocybe madness!!

So many dermocybe, but still don't know the difference...do know northern, as this is definitely deep red stipe, gills, the works...but as for the others there seems so many choices ..Today I picked sanguinea, semi sanguine (I think) and other sanguinea....some are yellow stipes with red gills, some are bright yellow gills and stalks with beige cap, some are curled at the edge of the cap, with yellow gills and beige stalk...I am so confused...will I ever learn the different types, doubtful, but I love the colors, and I am dyeing with them and drying them...here are some of the coral tones I got with the semi sanguinea, and my somewhat alkaline well water. The dermocybes are big and abundant right now here... I got that pile in a few hours of hiking in the woods...of course abundance is relative, but I was thrilled. And I have been trying to separate the kinds, hugely frustrating, and drying them in the dehydrator and they dry quite quickly.
Did some cashmere today in hypomyces lactifluorum, (lobster) and it turned out very nice. Will show soon as it dries. All in all a gillfull day. lol




Here are the three types I found today. Could be six types you never know, but they are the right types I am sure of that. All will give me wonderful colors.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Oh Oh Oh Oh Obama!!!




This is indeed a day that was great to wake up to....I am thrilled, excited, goosebumped and generally the world is a better place today and hopefully for awhile. I can't believe how nauseous I was yesterday while waiting for the outcome..and how tearfully thankful for that outcome...I can only imagine what an American must feel..




So while I waited I went shrooming to calm my angst, and that was a five hour bush whacking journey, which turned out very sweet.. Western Red Dyes were found, and chantrelles to eat with dinner...Now the semi sanguinea are drying in the dryer, along with some sanguinea I found today....here is a pic of yesterdays semi sanguinea along with a sweet faced tree frog ...so all in all it was a perfect day.