Fungi of Southeastern Oklahoma

  Here are some more observations from our trip to Broken Bow, OK last month.  I also posted about the plant life a couple of weeks ago.  It feels like I haven't looked at fungi in forever, mostly because I've been working on another project which you'll find out more on soon.  I'm pretty excited about multiple things that are happening in life right now, and hopefully I can be a little less cryptic and let you in on these things in the very near future.  Until then... fungi!

Fiber Is... || #1

I feel like I'm constantly reading about and meeting people who use fiber in unique and inspiring ways.  Knitters, weavers, spinners, dyers, printers... everyone has a different connection to fiber through their craft and it means something different to each and every one of us.  It's my pleasure to introduce a brand new column that explores those connections and gives us a different perspective on the impact that fiber has on the lives of artists who use it in very different ways.  I'm already inspired just thinking about it...  Here we go!

I came across Caitlin Ffrench through her patterns on Ravelry and was immediately intrigued by her unique style and great personality (well, of what I can tell from her photos.  But seriously, they have a lot of personality!) Caitlin is a pattern designer with garment photos that are both really fun and also jealousy inducing because of the incredible scenery that she lives in the midst of in the Pacific Northwest.  I knew from her blog that she is a natural dyeing expert (jealous a little bit more), and then I happened to grab a copy of the new Knit Scene magazine and lo and behold, there was Caitlin with a solar dyeing tutorial!  It's on my list of things to try out this summer, that's for sure.  Who's with me?!?  Here's a little more about this lovely, multi-talented fiber artist...

About Caitlin:

Hello! My Name is Caitlin Ffrench. Facts about me: I play accordion. It is large, and red, and it was my aunt's when she was little. No one else in the family wanted it! I make most of my own clothes. Dresses, sweaters, hoodies... its is because i'm 6 feet tall, and I need clothes that actually fit! I really like my cat. A lot. We hang out most every day, and we sing together! I got a BFA (Fine Arts degree) and halfway through completing it, went for a year of fibre school to draw inspiration. I ride bikes a lot. I also build freak bikes. Bikes are better than most everything else. Hobbies??.... all sorts. Weaving, spinning, sewing, building lovely things in my woodshop... a lot of reading too! I LOVE Grey's Anatomy. A LOT! I cry every time!

Ways Caitlin works with fiber, including her favorite craft:

Sewing, embroidery, spinning, weaving, felting, pattern construction, surface construction (screen printing), knitting, crochet.  And my favorites change all the time. Right now i'm totally into weaving.. but 2 weeks ago it was spinning!

And now for the big open ended question.  To Caitlin, fiber is...

Fiber is my everyday; I really make things every day. Some days I don't make much... but I still use my hands all of the time. Fiber is something to keep my mind happy, and my heart well. I can be connected to my fibre life by adventuring in the woods, harvesting dyes. Or I can be connected by just simply wearing something that I have sewn.

Fiber is something that I grew up with. My mother and grandmother both made things from fibre when I was growing up. My grandmother has since passed away, but I use her sewing machine all of the time. (It is a workhorse!) And my mother is a magnificent fibre artist. She can sew more beautiful things than I could believe are possible. She is fantastic! SO fibre is also something that connects me to my family.

You can find the lovely yarns that Caitlin dyes for sale in her Etsy shop, and she also has a blog.  Thanks, Caitlin!

All photos are sourced from Caitlin Ffrench's blog.

52 Forms of Fungi || #10

Two in one week!  I am dead set on this catching up thing.  This maze-like clump is called northern tooth and it's found mostly on maples, which is the tree it's on here.  You typically see it associated with wounds though, so I fibbed a little bit on that.  But in my defense, this is a terrible looking maple that was unfortunate enough to have someone plant it DIRECTLY underneath an overhead electric line (don't do that people!  ever!  unless you want your tree pruned in a very tragic way).  And in defense of the tree's feelings here, it's not ALWAYS terrible looking.  This little guy does have wonderful fall color; I just always feel bad about it's misfortunes as I'm jogging by...  Along with the other 5 maples planted in line with it, ALSO under the utility lines.  But I digress...

Here are two links to more information about northern tooth.  I typically like to post the Mushroom Expert profiles with each of these forms, but for some reason it didn't have any photos showing the growth habit that is portrayed here, so that's why I included the second link.

Northern Tooth....... one  ||  two

This structure was knitted as part of my 52 Forms of Fungi project, through which I will knit a different type of fungi for every week of 2013. Check out more of the forms from this project.

Broken Bow Flora

 As I mentioned last week, J and I spent a few days down in southeastern Oklahoma last weekend (where I also did my latest installation for the Decomposition series, "Riot").  It's a beautiful time of year to visit that area -- everything was in bloom: the dogwoods, red buds, wildflowers.  Trees were just starting to leaf out.  A hint of fungus was starting to appear here and there (that's another photo post entirely).  We absolutely loved the scenery, and it was so refreshing to get away from a few days.  You don't realize how much you miss the "sound" of silence until you hear it.  There are few things I love more than the absence of urban noises - cars, voices, industrial sounds... and in its place just the low hum of the wind and a nearby stream.  So peaceful, so revitalizing.  We will definitely be back.

I took so many photos that I will have to break it up into a few posts.  The flora comes first!

52 Forms of Fungi || #9

 There is a species called blue stain fungus that I've been familiar with for a while because it is found in pine trees here.  It happens to be a favorite food source of the pinewood nematode, which causes a disease we know here as "pine wilt".  Blue stain is unrelated, but pine trees that die rapidly and are found to have it are often assumed to have died of pine wilt.  In any case, I recently got to thinking about this fungus and realized that while I have seen the blue stained sapwood in pine trees, I've never seen fruiting bodies associated with it.  After some research I came to find out that the fruiting bodies are so small they are difficult to see (much less knit), but I did come across another type of stain fungi with some really remarkable fruiting structures... GREEN stain fungus.  Unlike blue stain fungus, green stain is found on hardwoods.  I'm pretty amazed by it!  I'm planning to do a larger project with these, but here is a sneak peek for now.  So vibrant.  I love them!

These structures were knitted as part of my 52 Forms of Fungi project, through which I will knit a different type of fungi for every week of 2013.  Check out more of the forms from this project.

Decomposition: Riot

I had the opportunity this past weekend to install my jack o lantern fungi in southeastern Oklahoma as part of the Decomposition series.  These are the largest forms I've used for an installation to date, and have a very different effect than the dozens of tiny mushroom caps seen in Colony I and Colony II.  Rather than sheer numbers, the "WOW" factor comes from the loud, warm hue, clustered around this unique stump with a cylinder of heartwood still standing majestically in the center.  A loud, warm, aggressive hue, a tightly packed cluster.... like a riot.

I enjoy this series more and more as I go along, and get more and more excited projecting future installations.  I'm also thinking I need to plan out some ideas on how to create an installation and leave it in place without offending my environmentally responsible conscience.  The materials I use are just too invasive to feel good about leaving out in "the wild".  I'll start brainstorming more on that, and actually I already have an idea brewing although it's for something outside the Decomposition series.  Hopefully I'll have time to start on that this summer...

On My Needles || Lanesplitter

 My LYS recently started a knit-along of the Lanesplitter skirt, which I was of course ecstatic to join in on despite my already never ending list of projects.  Loops in Tulsa is one of my fave yarn stores in the state, and it's also probably one of the hippest yarn stores I've ever been to... right up there with Purl Soho.  It's pretty great. Also, when I say "local" yarn store, I mean like 90 miles away local.  And when I say "knit along", I mean that I'm following the Ravelry thread and staying in the "loop" that way (see what I did there?).  So anyway, I haven't done any of their KAL's before and it seemed like a great opportunity to try out a type of garment I haven't knitted before... and here I am.  My progress has been gradual... very gradual... but I got it out for just a little while on our cabin getaway this past weekend.  And oh, the yarny, naturey bliss that was had by this fair cotton garment...

Sure, the porch is nice... but let's take it down to the creek bank, shall we?

Moss and more moss... a view of a stream...

What one wouldn't give to wander off into forested oblivion... forever...

Two balls of yarn, destined for adventure...

Two balls of yarn, facing the future with boldness.  Where no yarn has gone before....

Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd I'm done.  But really, who doesn't want that?

New Decomposition Installation + Weekend Away

This weekend my husband and I rented a cabin down in Broken Bow, Oklahoma (the southeastern part of the state) just to get away for a few days and enjoy being out in nature.  We planned the trip over a month ago, and since that time I've been busy working on these pieces for my fifth installation for the Decomposition series.  You might recognize them from the 52 Forms of Fungi project, since I made a couple to use as form number 5.  Check back later this week to see the installation--- I'm really happy with how it turned out and can't wait to share it with you!  In the meantime, here are a few more photos from the weekend.  You'd better believe I'll have posts out the wazoo (do people still say that?) depicting all of the awesome fungi and things that we spotted while hiking.

... and Emma got to come too.

Off the Needles || Walpole

Yes, it's finished!  I started Walpole just after Christmas and after a slowdown in late February I buckled down last month to crank out the second sleeve and finish up the yoke.  The pattern is designed by Hannah Fettig, who is also the brilliant knitter who dreamed up the Effortless Cardigan (which I also LOVE).  I used Knit Picks Capra yarn for the project, in the Celestial colorway.  Capra is 85% merino and 15% cashmere, making this my first project to utilize even a small amount of cashmere.  It is seriously cozy--- super soft and warm, but also light since the gauge was so small.  TINY gauge by my standards, when it comes to sweaters.  This piece definitely worked on my patience, but I'm so happy with the outcome and have already worn it multiple times.

My sleeves for the Effortless Cardigan ended up a little shorter than I wanted, so I knitted an extra couple of inches on the Walpole sleeves.  Maybe I should have measured instead of guesstimating it, because after blocking I found that the sleeves hang nearly to my fingertips.  I'm not really bothered by it though, because in the cooler months I enjoy pulling my hands inside my sleeves when I'm outdoors, and the sleeves are easy enough to roll up.

52 Forms of Fungi || #8

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.

Holga || Roll 1

I bought a Holga toy camera with Christmas money a couple of years back, and finally just got around to having the first roll of film I used with it developed.  I'm used to 35 mm, but the camera I bought uses 120 film.  To be honest, I wasn't sure how these were going to turn out because after a certain point the numbers do not seem to be showing up correctly as you wind through the film - it seems like I remember them starting to count backward at some point?  Anyway, it was exciting to get these images back and see the imperfections created by my well meaning ignorance of the thing, in addition to the characteristic light leaks, etc.

Most of these images are from our trip to Marfa, TX and Big Bend National Park in February 2011.  I played around with double exposure a little bit, which you can see in a couple of the beginning photos. The frames are off on the majority of these (well meaning film winding ignorance), but I think I like it.  It gives some of the photos (such as the one below) a bit of an "opposites" contrast.  The very last photo is from the condo we stayed in for our honeymoon in Costa Rica... I think I changed the film after taking that one.  Now I need to finish the current roll so I can see what kind of quirks/character the frames from that trip will have!

Do you use toy cameras?  I'm interested in trying out other kinds; let me know if you have a recommendation for what I should get next!

On another note, I miss the desert.  Looking over these REALLY makes me want to go visit south Texas again.

52 Forms of Fungi || #7

Enoki mushroom!  We're getting a little culinary this week.  This is the cultivated appearance of the enokitaki mushroom, which is orangey brown in the wild.  I always love looking at them in the grocery store, because just one little clump seems to have hundreds of tiny stalks and caps. For the sake of trying to stay on track with this project, I decided against going full scale... maybe another day.

They're just so neat looking.  I've never eaten them before though, have you?  Can anyone recommend a recipe?

Check out some other posts from the 52 Forms of Fungi project, where I knit a different type of fungi for every week of 2013.   In April, I vow to catch up!

Inspiration || Supernatural

It's been a while since I shied away from reposting content from other blogs, but I came across these images on Miss Moss this week and they struck me with inspiration, so I couldn't resist.  The photos are from a floral arranging studio lookbook for a couple of very talented ladies in Cape Town, South Africa: Emma Frost and Jessica Ellis.  Their studio is called Supernatural.  I love these so much, I'm not really even sure what to say about them!  Overall the concept is very creative, and it really gets my wheels turning!

Floral Design  ||  Supernatural

Photography  ||  Alix Rose Cowie

Styling  ||  Kate Desmarais

Model  ||  Shelly Chen

Found via  ||  Miss Moss

On My Needles || Hitchhiker

The Instagram-alongers Ravelry group has been working on Hitchhiker, a shawl by Martina Behm this month.  My progress on it is slow, but since it IS something I've been working on gradually, I thought I would share it.  Partly because I like my progress photos.  The shawl looks complicated, but it's actually a really easy pattern to memorize.  I ended up using some Bare Merino Knit Picks yarn that was in my stash for the project.  Since I do still have an aspiration to knit socks this year I just couldn't let any of my Malabrigo Sock yarn go for this one.  I'm tempted to try dyeing the bare garment once it's finished, but this would be my first dye attempt and who knows how that could turn out?  If anyone has experience with dyeing knitted garments as opposed to roving and has comments on the differences in results, please let me know!

52 Forms of Fungi || #6

 These little guys were inspired by some tiny forms that stick out in my mind as one of the most  memorable things I saw in nature on our Arkansas camping trip last summer.  They were incredible!  I'm experimenting a little bit with Jacquard dyes that you just paint on to the fabric.  It doesn't work quite as well with knits as I had hoped, but I'll keep working with it.  More to come!

Signs of Spring

Spring is here, and I'm loving every second.  I spent a few hours this past weekend potting up some new plants that have been restricted to the indoors, as well as repotting some old ones that were due for a little freshening up.  Can't wait to fire up the grill and enjoy some time out on the front porch in the coming weeks.  My hope for you is that you may get out to enjoy nature and all it's simple details this weekend.

Off the Needles || Palladio

I figured I should post a finished object so I can prove that I have in fact been knitting all these winter months... Really, I have.  Fingering weight sweaters just take such a dang long time!

Palladio is a beautifully romantic boatneck top with high waisted ribbing and lovely fluttering sleeves.  It knits up pretty quickly, and if you're looking for a project to work on this spring for light, summer wear, I highly recommend it!  I finished this top a few months back, but there are only so many photo shoots I can get myself to do in the cold so I opted to wait a little while to show it off.  In actuality, I think one of my last photo sessions - the flu ridden snow flurries one - had something to do with that.  I'm hoping to get a lot of wear out of this beauty this year and there are several other patterns in the same booklet that I would also love to make.  Berroco Captiva is a luxurious, beautiful yarn.

Spring, Spring, Spring!

Photo credit for 2nd photo down on the left side: @lauraleaf on Instagram

Here are a few shots from over the past few weeks.  Work has been super busy for me recently, with Arbor Week coming up.  I've just been trying to get in as much knitting as I can when I'm home, between getting back into my exercise routine and fighting off some intense allergy issues.  The past few days we've seen buds opening up and trees are starting to bloom and leaf out.  The weather has been warmer too, so I've been taking the pup on much longer walks and it's amazing how much my spirits are lifted by the new hints of green and short sleeve weather.  I'm itching to repot some plants and overhaul the compost pile... maybe this weekend.  Happy Spring, friends!  And here's to an extra hour of evening sunshine!  (unless you're in Arizona... in which case... happy spring!!)

52 Forms of Fungi || #5

Lately, I've been experimenting with a species commonly referred to as "Jack-O-Lantern fungus", and decided to use it for my 52 Forms of Fungi project.  Folk stories say that the mushroom's gills glow in the dark, hence the name.  Some sources tout this as a load of bull, but if you've witnessed this yourself I'd be interested to hear about it... These knitted forms do not glow in the dark, to clarify; I just thought that was a fascinating tidbit.

If you're familiar with Jack O Lantern mushrooms, these may not look quite right because they are normally found in clumps of many mushrooms.  As per my guidelines for this project, I'm only doing individuals but I AM working on several more of these for a project in the near future.

Check out more of my 52 Forms of Fungi posts

Decomposition: Colony III

This past week was a bit of a blur getting ready for my first gallery exhibition, but I am very honored to have been awarded Curator's Choice for my "Decomposition: Colony III" installation at Momentum: Art Doesn't Stand Still in Oklahoma City this year!  There were so many outstanding pieces and talented artists in the exhibition, and I feel very grateful to have shown my work alongside them.  I am even more overwhelmed, grateful, and encouraged to the curators for this event, PLUG Projects from Kansas City.  This has been a very humbling, inspiring and motivational experience, an opportunity that I owe Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition a lot for making possible as well.  While my drive to make art is still going strong because I simply enjoy what I do so much, it was encouraging to see the response to my work by peers and other artists.  I've made some great contacts and am seeing what a great, welcoming, art community is here in OKC.  Now I know for sure that I can't let my visions falter and go unrealized.

Aside from the enjoyment that came from nerding out over wood decay, moss, plants, and assembling all of my other materials, I think my favorite part of the exhibition was watching people observe my piece.  While I avoided hovering nearby because it made me nervous, it was fantastic to see people crouching down to look at the knitted mushroom caps up close, and further inspecting the other components of the installation - the exact response that I was hoping for.  I'm excited to continue on to the next phase (possibly two) of this series which will hopefully come to fruition in the next month or so (installation plans are already slated for April).

Thank you for all the support and kind comments.  I've checked off a major bucket list item here and can't wait to see what comes along next.

If you are unfamiliar with the Decomposition Series, you can see previous installations at the links below:

Decomposition: Colony I

Decomposition: Colony II

Decomposition: Stacks