8 comments on “Podcast Episode 128: Learn Something New Every Day”

1. I have had poop bag drama for years! Mostly at my old place. I’d go out to wheel my bins back, and *after* the trash was picked up, people would throw their bags in, and then it would ferment in there for a week, and I’d be sick to my stomach whenever I opened the lid. Ugh. At my new place, I just occasionally walk outside to find some lady I don’t know letting her two large dogs both poop on my lawn, and she never has bags with her to pick it up 🙁

2. At my last house (where I had the poop bag drama), my neighbor’s huge black walnut tree also hung half into my yard, and dropped walnuts all over my truck all the time. I kept hearing a metallic bang outside, but couldn’t figure it out for weeks.

   I picked one up to play with it once, and peeled it open, and inside the green ball husk was a walnut, but it was extremely spongy. It looked exactly like a walnut, but I could squeeze it completely flat in my hands. It felt like a wet NERF toy. 20 minutes later, my hands were streaked and splotched with dark brown stains. I tried to wash it off, then tried acetone, mineral spirits, and every other noxious thing in the garage, but it remained unfazed. I looked it up, and learned that the staining ingredient, juglone, which is all through the tree, and is a powerful herbicide (and why you can’t plant anything around a walnut tree without it dying) is an extremely colorfast dye. Manuscripts written in the Roman times in walnut ink are still as vibrant now as they were then! I had to wait a week or two for it to wear away with my skin.

   I learned more. I bought a cast iron frying pan, because the iron supposedly reacts with the juglone to make a richer, blacker dye. I simmered a bunch of them until the husks fell apart, adding water as it evpaporated over the course of about 40 minutes. Then I filtered it through coffee filters, which wasn’t a great idea; the slurry is too soupy, and I ended up throwing too much out, because I couldn’t filter it properly. Some kind of ultrafine mesh would be better, at least at first. I had picked up bamboo tongs to stir and pick up the pieces, and those were permanently stained almost black. It was messy.

   I got a couple of mason jars of thick ink, though. You can evaporate it down to something like an india ink for rich writing, or water it down to something like a fine wash to stain paper or wood. It’s a really cool substance. You can keep doing that back and forth, too.

   So yes, flash forward 5 years. I’ve gotten into knitting, learned a little about dyeing, and had yarn pop into my mind. I bought 5 skeins of KnitPicks Wool of the Andes bare worsted. I found the ink, which traveled with me when I moved. I had added some vinegar to prevent molding, but there was a fine skin of mold floating on one, which I skimmed off. I’m hoping that doesn’t mess everything up. I split into 5 smaller jars, each with 1 more part by volume than the last. I’m hoping to dye the skeins with an ombre effect, but I want to do it right, after all the time and effort that’s gone into making the ink. I read a bit, and picked up alum and cream of tartar, too, though I’m not sure they’re needed.

   • Interesting! Thank you, Gary!
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3. I think this is the episode where somebody asked about progress keepers, right? They’re BIG in the Instagram sock knitting community and I always loved them but never quite knew how to use them, so never bought any myself. But I was given a few through swaps. I like to use them to mark the front of my magic loop socks so I know when I’ve finished a round. I used to use a clippy stitch marker – and that works fine – but having a cute charm is so much more fun! And it’s REALLY fun when you can coordinate your sock yarn, project bag, AND charm by color or theme (like Harry Potter or Christmas or something like that)! ??

   • (Oops, don’t know where those two question marks at the end came from…)

4. A ‘hello’ from Australia. Thank you for sharing the gauge cutout. While I get it may not suit your US listeners it is perfect for those of us who use the metric system. Love your podcast and your you tube channel. ?

   • Thanks, Kylie! We “tried” to convert to the metric system in the 1970s, and unfortunately, it didn’t stick. 🙂 But people my age learned it in school…I still use centimeters when inches are too big and cumbersome. Glad you like the gauge cutout link!
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5. I always find your blog very interesting. Thanks for the share.

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