Fungus Festival Weekend

 It has been raining cats and dogs this past week.  I think we’ve had over 10 inches of rain in the past 6 days!  It has been coming down in sheets, our neighbor deemed it “movie rain.”  And that’s pretty fitting, it’s like someone cued up an intense pounding rainstorm and forgot to turn it off.  Needless to say it has been good for the mushrooms and for some indoor dyeing time.  I saw these bright beauties on our walk  home last week.  Unfortunately it was not one I learned to identify this weekend on our edible mushroom walk, but it sure is colorful.

This is a fine specimen of The King Bolete, also known in Italy as a porcini, mmm.  This is one of the choicest edible mushrooms anywhere.  Apparently it’s not too common to find around here but we will be on the lookout for more.  Coked with butter and garlic it was divine.  We also harvested some gypsy mushrooms, hedgehogs, yellow footed chanterelles and angel wings.  The hunt is on!

The King Bolete

And if rainy weather isn’t that colorful, at least the rain gear is.

The Colors of Rain

And the colors of freshly dyed yarn are also hard to beat, while not as fluorescent they are still pretty captivating.  We’ve got 3 Autumn Colorways getting ready to be released (soon I promise) and one fun extra that I had to play with this weekend.

I’m calling it “Octopus in Eccles” and it’s a fun mix of tangerine,violet, periwinkle and white.  It is perhaps fitting that I had the octopus on my mind this weekend because apparently it was also popular on the world wide web.  When I checked the computer this morning I had an email from youtube letting me know I had almost 9,000 views on my octopus video  this weekend!  Does that count as going viral?  Anyhow I’m pleased so many people find our octopus visitor intriguing.  I sure have had it’s colors on my mind.

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Freshly Rinsed

While it was mostly orange when you got up close you could see that the suckers were shades of violet and of course masters of camouflage that they are, its colors transformed even while we watched it.

Still Steaming

I’m excited to see how this one looks once it’s all skeined up and ready to knit with!  Yarn and octopi have a natural affinity, both being tentacular after all.