Cool Links
- Mushroom Color Atlas - I knew you could make dyes out of plant materials but I had no idea you could do the same with mushrooms! This is a fascinating atlas of mushroom pigments and dyes with beautiful line drawings of the mushroom used, information on the process to achieve each, color swatches and occasionally more extensive notes on the batch process. If you poke around the website, you'll find information on the mushroom atlas book that is going to be published in September. I'm not a fabric dyer but I could sit and look at these color swatches all day. Amazing.
- 45 record adapters - This site was last updated in 2016 so I think it's been forgotten. But, it is a blast from the past for me. Back in the olden days, we used to buy our music on various sized vinyl disks. The smaller ones usually needed an adapter to fit on your record player's spindle. The usual ones were yellow but apparently they came in all sorts of shapes! This site catalogs adapter shapes, from the usual to the unusual, gives a history on records, showcases adapter packaging. Just a really cool site, chock full of information.
- Karen's Whimsy - Paper Crafts - This is part of an artist's personal site. She has free pdf downloads available of vintage paper crafts. There are all sorts of vintage paper dolls, both colored and black and white so you can color your own as well as some other pages with circus, holiday and other themes. Many of the images are taken from magazines like Ladie's Home Journal from the early 1900s.
I hope you enjoy those links! The adapter page reminded me of going to Tower Records as a teenager and flipping through their section of 45s. And the paper doll crafts brought back a nice memory, too. My mom acquired old clothing pattern books (Butterick, Simpliciy, etc) and showed me how to cut out the ladies' figures and the clothing to make my own paperdolls.
I'm usually pretty happy staying home but I did 2 outside of the house things this weekend!
On Friday I watched "Quiet Place: Day One" with my son at a really neat theater in the next town. It's a passion project created by one of the local real estate developers. Currently it's only open Thursday-Sunday but the price is only $3.50. Sometimes bargain theaters are kind of rundown but this one is nice and clean and the theater seats were recently upgraded to nice rockers. Also, it's fun to go to because there is TONS of movie memorabilia all over - costumes, props, posters, etc. They don't play first run movies but it is a mix of newer and older films. The movie was ok. I quite enjoyed the first 2 in the franchise. This was fine, just not as good as those. Maybe because you kind of know what's going to happen? Also, a very uncat-like cat features in it. I was almost more amazed at how the cat didn't get itself and its people eaten by monsters (as would have happened with any cats I owned) than intrigued with the story.
On Saturday I met up at one of our local breweries with a couple of friends from the hospital I used to work at. It was great getting to see them again and catch up. I moved to another hospital, one stayed and one is retired. So, it was fun catching up and hearing what was going on.
I used to think I didn't like beer but after my son was grown he introduced me to different beers. I love stouts and porters, sometimes saisons. I do NOT like IPAs and it's a shame that they are so damn popular because while you can choose from 12 different IPAs, you usually only get one stout OR porter choice. But even though this place had one of each, I decided to be adventerous and try something different. My first selection was Hit the Lights, a Czech dark lager from Pariah Brewing Company. It was perfectly good although I think I was expecting a little more maltiness from the description. Instead of getting a beer for my second choice I chose a hard seltzer, Santa Rita Margarita from Bone Haus Brewing. Now I usually turn my nose up at seltzers but I tried it on the recommendation of my son. It was not bad but really not my jam. It had a kind of weird aftertaste which I think was just the seltzer part of it. I could have played it safe with ordering my usual styles but I'm glad I tried something different.
Aside from being social, I also spent time working on my entry for the 32-Bit Cafe's code jam. My page is about grocery store canned tuna fish - what exactly is in the can and what kind of catch method you want to make sure they are responsibly caught. Also, some tuna facts and possibly a tuna pun or two.
Not a whole lot to say as far as what I'm reading or watching. I'm still making my way through Shadowrise. It's an 800 page book and I think I might be a quarter-way through? I did finish up season 2 of Slow Horses. That show is SO GOOD. Not sure what I'm going to watch next.