Mushroom farm

I've had a go at growing mushrooms in the past using those kits you get in polystyrene boxes and have to put in the shed or the airing cupboard, but they were always for fairly boring white mushrooms.

Recently though, I came across Ardnamushrooms Shitake block at the Partick Farmer's Market in Glasgow in May and they're great.

It's a gypsum and woodchip block that's colonised with shitake spores. You soak it in cold water for a couple of days, then set it up in a humid chamber (basically a plastic box with water in the bottom and an old towel draped through the water and up the sides with cling-film over the top) somewhere it will get the light for at least half the day, and just let it go. It produces mushrooms for a couple of weeks which you harvest as soon as they're big enough. Once it stops producing, you take the block out of the chamber, trim off any bits of mould that have come along for the ride, and store it dry for eight weeks. By then, it's ready for another round of production.


This block is in it's second cycle of production for us and the guy from Ardnamushrooms reckons that it's possible to get up to 8 rounds of production out of one block.


The mushrooms taste really good too!

Needlecase: Part 2

So once I had my straight needles, crochet hook and stitch holders etc organised, I started wondering how to cope with circular needles.

The solution was almost the same as for the straights, with a bit of an internal redesign so that the pockets faced inwards and there was space for a needle gauge. Each pocket will hold up to three circular needles comfortably (depending on needle size).


The only problem was that this case didn't really roll up very well. Eventually I figured out that the best option was to fold it in half and concertina it, holding it all in place with a loop of elastic round a button as before.

I'm not as pleased with this case as I was with the one for straights, I'm sure with a bit more reworking I could improve the way it folds up and closes, but it works and has been in use ever since I made it.

Needlecase: Part 3

A good friend of mine who has recently had a sudden and rather dramatic conversion to knitting as a hobby has just bought herself a lot of needles, crochet hooks, stitch holders etc. She's also about to move to North Carolina (from Glasgow), so I thought that a gift with a practical underpinning and a slightly Scottish feel to it might be in order.

And so a tweed needle case was born...


This is the same size and basic design as the one I made for myself but the construction is better and the darker fabric shouldn't show up the marks so badly.


The fabric came from another friend who makes kilts etc and was having a clear-out of off-cuts, so the tweed had to be patchworked together.


The fabric was also a lot heavier that the stuff I used for my own case so I didn't need the wadding. The button was a stiffened leather one from John Lewis.

The biggest improvement though, was that I finally learned to use the walking foot on my sewing maching. My in-laws gave us the sewing maching as a wedding present and it came with 8 different feet. I know how to use 5 of these and haven't had a need (yet) for two, but the walking foot is something that I've been meaning to get to grips with for ages. It's just genius! No more will a stack of heavy fabric all want to go different directions at once. I can't believe that I didn't have a go with it sooner as it would have made my own needle case a lot simpler (getting the wadding to stay in place was very tricky)!

Needlecase: Part 1

About a year ago, I decided that the time had come to stop storing my needles in one large bundle in a sterile drape box my mum had used since she first qualified as a nurse. I was fed-up having to rake throught them all to find a matched pair and wanted to devise an alternative system.

I went through my fabric stash (something that existed long before I even thought about knitting as a hobby), set up my sewing machine and came up with this...


A fabric needle case with three tiers of pockets for long needles, medium needles and DPNs and crochet hooks.


It rolls up for storage and fastens with a loop of elastic secured round a button.


The edges are all bound with seam tape and there is some medium weight wadding between the outer shell and the inner lining to keep the needles snug. It's not the best sewing job I've even done but it has been in use constantly since it's conception and I wouldn't be without it (thought the old sterile drape box is still somewhere in my stash storing needles that I have many duplicates of - my granny had a real thing for old UK size 11 and 12 needles (3mm and 2.75mm) which I don't really have the patience for).

I absolutely loved the fabric at the time (fairly recent furnishing fabrics from John Lewis - all odd remnants) and still do, but it's perhaps not the most practical choice for something that is stuffed in bags and rolled out on the floor etc as it's getting a bit marked now. I do however learn from these errors in judgment as Needlecase: Part 3 will show...

Ooooh, pretty!

I thought I'd provide some pretty eye candy that has brightened up my week. A few posts back, I showed some pictures of my spoils from Woolfest. Lurking in one of those pictures was a pile of space-dyed merino roving.

In fact, here it is...


Well, it occurred to me that it was probably too good to felt and that the particular blend of colours would be lost when combined with other roving I have. To cut a long story short, I got in touch with the wonderful Lilith who spun and plied it for me, and now I have approximately 190 yards of heavy sock yarn.


So, what to do with it? I didn't want to make any decisions before I saw the yarn as I couldn't picture what would happen to the colour distribution once it was plied. Now I've seen it, and it's beautiful, I really want to make the most of it. Suggestions please...

Normal service has not (quite) resumed...

...because the new Harry Potter book arrived the day after I got home from my conference - I don't really think that needs further explaination!

Being in Trieste was like being on another planet. It was really warm - the sort of warm you don't get in Scotland - where the heat is all around you and not just coming from the direction of the sun. The conference didn't allow much time for sightseeing, but what we did see was lovely...

The castle on the hill...


The roman ampitheatre...


The canale grande...


Miremare - the home of Archduke Ferdinand...


And of course the beautiful sunset every night.

Lily Burst

My garden became a lot more fragrant this week due to this...


...the pink lilies have started opening. They've been threatening to for a while, the buds getting larger and larger, and then holding out for over a week past the point when I thought they couldn't possibly stay closed any longer.


They're a bit unusual as lilies go. The first year I had them, they were your standard pink scented lilies but they appear to have picked up a mutation and become doubles or semi-doubles in the last couple of years. Not to worry, they still look great and smell wonderful.

Things are going to be a bit quiet here for the next week or so. I'm off to the DNA Tumour Virus Meeting in Trieste to present some work, meet up with colleagues and collaborators and catch up with the current research in general. It's not going to be all work though, Trieste is going to be warm (35 C) and there are always a couple of breaks in the schedule for sight-seeing.