Timing Is Everything

Day 40: Lately, it's seemed like there was always some other call upon my time when we were to have nice weather, preventing me from going out for a walk. I was either keeping repairmen amused, compelled by an empty fridge to go grocery shopping, or had some other obligation. Nice days are few and far between at this time of year in western Washington, and I was starting to get crabby, so when all the moving parts came together in accord, I took a once-around of our little county park. I only found one thing of note (coming up tomorrow), but I hadn't expected to find anything at all. You take what's offered, however small. At any rate, that blue stuff behind the leaves here will be short-lived. It may be spring before I get another chance for a pleasant walk.

Blackwork Bird

Day 39: I've been doing a lot of embroidery lately, mostly as "slow-stitching." As I was working, it occurred to me that I'd started some blackwork months ago, and hadn't done anything on it for quite some time. I dug down in the bottom of my workbasket, and underneath a pair of half-finished socks, there was the Bird. First let me say that those socks will probably never be finished. The yarn is some utterly horrible, loosely twisted, irregular stuff I picked up on sale from Herrschner's. I've sworn never to fall into that trap again! I will probably unravel the socks and use the yarn in a weaving project so it isn't a complete loss. Anyway...the Bird has been on my Bucket List of projects ever since I bought Elizabeth Geddes and Moyra McNeill's "Blackwork Embroidery" (a Dover book) some forty years ago. It is on the cover. My version of it uses different filling stitches and some small amount of artistic license, and when it is done, it will go in a frame to match two other pieces of blackwork hanging in my living room. I don't often keep needlework for myself, but blackwork is something I particularly like, both to work and to see. The three pieces are quite different from one another: the Bird (when it's done), a Dresden plate design, and a square maze, which together show the versatility of blackwork. Time to get some of these "Bucket List" pieces done!

Loom Room Blooms

Day 38: A certain mischievous varmint's propensity for getting into things he's not supposed to get into means that my Christmas cacti remain in the Loom Room window rather than being brought out and placed on the mantel when they come into bloom. Strangely enough, he heeds my admonitions of "No, not for kitties!" and "Off! Curl up in your little weaver's box and be good!" when I'm back there, although once he's had his nap and wakes up again, I may have to repeat myself. In actuality, I haven't been weaving much lately. I have a very boring project on Max at the moment, and I've been otherwise occupied with finishing up some Christmas gifts, quilting and embroidering, all of which are crafts I do in the living room. I nearly missed the picotee cactus' flowering period, but it alerted me to the buds coming on the yellow and white ones shown here. The white is particularly lush this year. Maybe I should take its hint and finish up those monotonous placemats while it's in full splendor.

Fill-in Motif

Day 37: As a general rule, when I stitch the layers of a quilt together, I do so 1/8" inside each seam line rather than working an overall design like clamshells or waves. There have been exceptions to that, of course, and occasionally I add embellishments to open areas of solid-colour fabric (a daisy in the center of a circle, for example). In this way, the pieced pattern is reflected on the back, and is more obvious by virtue of not being overwhelmed by prints. Quilting came about as a way to prevent batting from clumping or bunching up, and now many batts are rated by the maximum number of inches between lines of stitching which the quilter must not exceed. Where the chrysanthemum/Dresden plate blocks join in "Autumn Oranges," I had large open spaces of brown which really needed tacking down. As I worked on the plates, my mind was running over possibilities. Circles? Small inside large? Yeah, that would do, especially since I already had ready-made templates. But I wasn't satisfied with the idea. Yesterday, it hit me: add scallops around the outer edge to make a big daisy! A quick sit-down with the templates, a sheet of plastic and a pair of scissors to cut it with, and ten minutes later, I had a 12-petal "sunflower" I could outline in chalk.

Utterly Ridiculous Cat

Day 36: If there is one cardinal rule in feline care, it is that you must never laugh at a cat, but how can you not, when they do such utterly ridiculous things? This is one of Merry's preferred sleeping positions, and it doesn't seem to matter if he's not cushioned. On the bed, in my desk chair, or on the floor, he will stay like this for half an hour or more until the unavoidable laugh wakens him. Even then, he may just open his eyes. I've shared my life with a lot of cats over the years, but none of them ever spent so much time sunny side up.

Suillus Caerulescens

Day 35: If you have found a mushroom with "sponge" underneath the cap instead of gills, it is most likely one of the boletes. The common name is a convenient generalization for a group which includes Boletus, Suillus, Leccinum and others. Many are edible, and some are choice: the "King Boleta" (Boletus edulis), for example. As a rule, those with red pores or stipes are to be considered poisonous, and those which stain blue may cause reactions in some people. Suillus caerulescens (above) is one of the latter. Also known as the "Douglas-fir Suillus," they fruit abundantly in my yard. The cap is viscid (sticky), and the pores are large and angular (see inset). "Fat Jack" is another common name for the species, and it is generally regarded to be undesirable for the table.

Dare I Say "Transcendens?"

 

Day 34: I am going to go waaaaay out on a limb here (because I haven't done any chemical testing) to assert that this is a specimen of Cladonia transcendens. There are not many red-fruiting Cladonias in western Washington, and I can rule out bellidiflora because of the absence of abundant squamules on the podetia, and I can eliminate macilenta by the overall yellowish tinge (macilenta leans toward blue). The one specimen of "Cladonia cristatella" in the WTU Herbarium is a misidentification. Cristatella ("British Soldiers") does not occur in the Pacific Northwest. Cladonias are notoriously difficult to identify even with chemical testing, and it's not often that you find one with a morphology which strongly suggests one species over another as it seems to me that it does here. I could be wrong. I might even say that there's a high likelihood that I am wrong, that it's a species which doesn't show up in any of my field guides. But that's the thing about science. You can be wrong without any shame. In fact, if a scientist can't admit when they're wrong, they're in the wrong profession.