Parrot fungi! These two are a couple of variations on this species which really stuck out to me when I was flipping through my Audubon mushrooms field guide. Apparently they are edible and grow near conifers across North America. The actual mushrooms are very glossy and slimy looking. I experimented a little with using a gloss spray, but it didn't work out on the knitted material at all, unfortunately. I'll keep brainstorming on this aspect, since I'm sure it will come around again with a different species.

It's funny, I'm noticing that after I complete a phase of this project the pieces end up on display somewhere in my house. The enoki mushrooms are sitting on our mantel, and I just put the little parrots in my Norfolk pine in the living room. The jack o lantern fungi are still hanging out on my knitting shelf, because I'm working on a larger installation for them -- more details on that very, very soon!

These fungi were knitted as a part of my 52 Forms of Fungi project, where I knit one different type of fungi for every week of 2013. Check out some of the other forms I've knitted so far.