Jill Dyer

This thread awoke a childhood memory.  Monday was wash day, dessert was rice pudding which could cook in the oven with little attention.  Pa christened it "rice pudding with soap suds".  The cook was not amused 😒

Thanks Ellen for posting the mushroom species - I can now chase up local equivalents, and see if I can ID "my" puffball.  
Out of curiosity I once worked out how much time it took to make a sweater from fleece to finished product.  Logged all the steps, and came up with 120 hours.  That was for dyeing the yarn with a commercial indigo product.

Experienced a similar problem with a pottery kiln.  The fuse turned out to be too small (sorry to get technical!) and once that was swapped out for a larger capacity one, everything was fine.
NB I failed Physics. . .

Isn't it great that the solution to the problem came from out of the great unknown!  Apart from that my silent scream may have helped.  Good to know that help is at hand, whatever the problem.

Lovely!  Are you able to ID the mushrooms used?   If puff balls grow in your part of the world they are well worth trying.  The ones that grow here in Oz produce nice brown/rust and even black.

I'm wondering whether de-gumming the tent caterpillar silk might help - if it has gum that is, like regular 'silkworm' silk.  Worth a try?  perhaps on part of the trial spin to gauge is there is any difference.  Tent caterpillars don't live in this neck of the woods, otherwise I'd volunteer to try

Our commentators for the Tour de France . . . now approaching fast -introduced "Fromage Friday"  - a great excuse for a walk on the wild side straight past the cheddar.

When the casserole just coming out of the oven hit the floor my Mom let fly with the longest combination of swear words I'd ever heard - 8 plus an 'and' with lots of commas indicating a list    Colour me gobsmacked!
I'm fond of exclaiming "sausages" -  quite some satisfaction in the sibilance there;  or "well just bummer" or "bu**ar bum balls"  In moments of extreme stress when I was working (paid sort)  I'd go outside and deep breathe under the lemon scented gum - that was always good.  Otherwise it's just the go-to words usually printed using asterisks and such. . .

Wildfire [aka bushfire here] smoke:- wispy and greyish - grass;  heavier and taking on a brownish cast - the shrubs and low growing plants have caught;  dark grey and billowing - the eucalypts have entered the picture - time to get the go bag.  
We also get inblown ash - from considerable distances - dark stuff floating down from an otherwise blue sky.  Check the emergency services website and cross fingers.

Hi - I was looking at lac for dyeing and as an aside it said that the shellac part was very reactive with metals which made the varnish dark, and could even eat through any tin containers.  So I guess glass or plastic could be best for mixing/storage.