Serious Warp Chicken, Rigid Heddle Style

Day 362: I have played Warp Chicken on rigid heddle before, but never quite as narrowly as this. I did manage to get the full 280 throws on my last placemat, but it measures a full inch and then some shorter than the other five because I was overcompensating with the beat. Still, having the same number of throws as the others will go a long way in how it fulls in the wash. I've used the counted-throw method before, and after fulling, the difference in lengths was negligible even though it had been very noticeable in the raw. Now both rigid heddle looms are standing empty, as is my table loom. I'd like to start a new project, but what I want to make has to (HAS TO!) go on the floor loom, and that's currently occupied with a rather boring project. I've created a dilemma for myself!

Textbook Specimen

Day 361: During our mushroom foray yesterday, I showed Ed a few of the other species I can recognize easily, and elaborated on what field identification points I was using to make my determination. He is anxious to learn about mushrooms, so of course the first lesson I gave was this: "Never eat a mushroom if you're not 110% sure of your identification." There were a lot of unknowns along the trail, but also Russulas of different colours and good ol' Lobsters, which gave me the opportunity to explain why I don't eat them; to wit, Lobster is a fungal overgrowth which largely occurs on Russulas, and you don't know which Russula may lie beneath the Lobster's bright orange coating. Some Russulas can cause severe gastric distress, so I avoid Lobster entirely. Then as we walked along, we suddenly came into a patch some 50' in diameter which was heavily populated with huge Amanita muscarias, some with flattened caps as large as dinner plates. They were the only ones we'd seen on the entire hike, and included this textbook-perfect specimen. I took the opportunity to expand Ed's education on field points, but also to explain that some mushroom toxins (particularly amanitotoxins) linger forever in the liver, continuing to damage the organ beyond the toxins' immediate effects. That said, there is no 'shroom so photogenic as this species, so I hunt them every year...with my camera.

Ed Goes Mushrooming

Day 360: My weaving friend Ed came up for a visit, and suggested that we could go for a hike today. I had several options to suggest, and after we'd narrowed it down to three, I said, "Okay, would you rather go for a longer hike or go mushrooming?" but then it occurred to me that we could do both fairly easily. We started with the longer walk, picking up a few chanterelles on the way. I led him down a spur on the way back to the car, thinking (as I had done with Arnie in the same area) that we could connect with another trail to take us back to parking. We were talking as we walked, and went right past the short leg where we should have turned, kept going for another mile or so until agreeing that turning back might be preferable to going on. A two-mile plan morphed into a 4-5 mile actuality, but at least we had a good start on mushrooms in the "perhaps bag." It was a good thing we'd found them there, because the second spot only yielded up about half a dozen more, although what we'd gathered was plenty to make a good lunchtime soup for both of us. It was Ed's first mushrooming experience, and a delightful day all around.

Which Of These...?

Day 359: Which of these objects is unlike the others? Or more to the point, why is it different? I was not expecting to find a 1" diameter berry on my hardy kiwis when I went out to pick a snack yesterday, but now that the leaves are beginning to fall, it's easier to see the fruit. Yes, I'm still learning the Art of the Kiwi, and have discovered that the berries come readily off the vine when they're ripe, even dropping to the ground of their own accord. Last year, I figured out that they don't really start to ripen until the leaves begin changing colour. This year, I noticed that the stems of the fruit start to wither and turn brown to signal their readiness for picking. But what happened here? Where did the big berry come from? You may recall that I originally planted two "Issai" vines, purportedly self-fertile, but not very interested in doing their job. Consequently, I planted a male/female pair of "Clark" and "Anna" so that I would at least stand some small chance of getting fruit, and hoping that "Clark" might also fertilize "Issai." I think it did. I think this one larger fruit is from "Issai." Okay, time for a re-think. I will abandon my plans to remove "Issai" and will see if I can encourage a leg of "Clark" to intertwine with it. And I'm wondering if, as more leaves drop, I might find a few more "Issai" bonuses.

The Renowned Joe Stick

Day 358: When my friend Rob and his dad were here visiting from New Zealand in late June, it was only natural for them to request a grand tour of my yard. I hadn't expected it would come immediately after they got settled in, but it did. I showed them the Berry Pen, the Barren Wasteland, the contorted filbert, the fig tree, etc. and so forth and, thinking I'd covered all the bases, led them around to go in the front door. Rob surprised me by saying, "I want to see the Joe Stick." I burst out laughing, amazed that he even remembered my posts about Chlorociboria aeruginascens, the tiny aqua-blue fungus my botany partners had gifted to me several years before. "It's JUNE, Rob!" I replied. "It probably won't even be visible as a blue smear. It fruits in autumn." But I obligingly parted the hosta leaves, dug down beneath the ferns and extracted the Stick. It had just a few discs showing which satisfied Rob's curiosity. With that in mind, this post is for him. The Stick is not yet in its full glory, but I am happy to report that this unusual fungus is still performing quite well in my Garden of Botanical Curiosities.

Gobble-gobble!

Day 357: Dealing with a plumbing issue was not the way I really wanted to spend today. I would have much preferred standing at the window to watch the robins, starlings and a solitary Northern Flicker take their fill of mountain-ash berries. The Flicker was something of a surprise. I've never seen one eat mountain-ash fruit before, although they are a fruit-eating species. The robins, on the other hand, always come to the table, often as not cleaning up every scrap, leaving nothing for the Cedar Waxwings, should any happen to appear. It's been some years since I've seen them. Yes, watching the birds gobble-gobble would have been much preferable to buying a new water heater, but the Fates had other plans for me. Knock wood, I'll spend tomorrow watching birds.

Norse Kitchen

Day 356: For all of Norse Kitchen having been a "bucket list" project for me (the one draft from "A Handweaver's Pattern Book" I most wanted to weave), I got distracted from it by quilting and other fiberarts. My weaving friend Ed said he'd like to come up from Oregon for a visit, and I thought, "Damn, I really wish I had that thing off the loom!" I've spent the last three days finishing up the runner. Done! The two towels (lavender and dark blue) measure in the raw at 31.5" x 20", and the runner (teal) is 51" x 20". I am expecting the towels to shrink to roughly 27" x 17", and the runner to 46" x 17" after a thorough wash-and-dry. It's hard to believe that this is a four-shaft design, and trust me, the draft was difficult to decipher. As Marguerite Davison had written the repeats, it was hard to tell what went where. I eventually wrote out all 495 threads in Fiberworks and taped a printout together so I could check off each section as I threaded it. Yes, this one requires very meticulous attention while threading! The treadling is less confusing, but this is not a pattern you can work on while your mind is on anything else. I wove it on my table loom which meant that I was working standing up at the desk which serves as my workbench. Merry nearly always occupied the chair which was tucked into the knee-hole, and every now and then, a little soft, grey hand would reach up from underneath to let me know I'd been weaving long enough for one session. If I failed to respond appropriately, a light nip on my leg would remind me where the true Center of the Universe is situated. I probably won't reload the table loom until I'm closer to the end of the warp on the floor loom. I need to get that piece done because I need the extra width to weave a winter ruana.

Update: Got a little more shrinkage in the length than I anticipated. Towels are 24", runner 41". Width came in exactly at 17" as predicted. Fibers were 10/2 cotton for warp and tabby, 8/2 for overshot thread.