SUP

@fredk I suspect some of the people here are truly perplexed about his stubbornness in the face of so many good experiences and proof with M&G and his refusal to even consider it while others just enjoy needling him a bit.

That is beautiful. Such beautiful stamping! It is very unusual, your pattern. Lovely piece of work.

The basket weave is stunning and eye-catching. I feel that if you had used a thinner thread, it would have appeared unbalanced. I think unconsciously you used the correct thickness. Your stitching is neat and even too, so it complements the stamping well.

@Wepster I once dropped half a litre of oil on a new dress! Covered it in talcum powder, and added fresh lot several times as it got saturated. The dress was clean in 2 days! I had completely forgotten until you mentioned it here. @fredk thank you for mentioning talcum powder here. Now I can get it and keep it ready for so many uses, including giving a matte finish to leather. So no Baby powder - pure talc is probably better - via the ubiquitous Amazon.

@DocReaperNo offense taken. We all have our own opinions. The second part, I agree, which I why I said what I did. In spite of voting blue! imagine!

@fredk Thank you. I will look for that.

Hey @DocReaper I vote blue! why am I being offended here? Hmm? But the rest, the issue @jasonsmith is more that there is no need to be rude. Everyone here has their own way of doing things and disagree every so often. We communicate in a friendly, polite way, not like recalcitrant teenagers. You don't have to do what people suggest here but you don't have to knock the suggestions down the way you did. Most of the people here have decades of experience. I am a newbie too and respect that experience. You should try that sometime. Back to the topic, @fredk what talc do you use? Any plain talcum powder? Like baby powder?

@AWORKOFMARC Springfield leather is a store that sells sections of leather by the foot. You can call and ask them about the type best suited for your purpose and order it as well. I have always found their products to be good.

@Bert03241 LOL. With all the scraps we accumulate, who would not want a leather, the scraps of which we can throw into a pot for dinner?

@Nicbards Thank you. Those are very clear pics and your explanations is as well. I need to put up my pics of the leathers treated with diff oils, kept in different locations and conditions. Been very busy with Diwali and now, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas around the corner! Will try to do so soon.

@Klara And people in the third world countries go on breeding like rabbits - I can say that, as I come from one, before anyone says it is politically inappropriate. I used to be astonished at families with 13 and 15 children - one mother! Those poor women! They don't bother reading any such material, too busy either breeding or trying to feed the mouths thus created! Chrome tanned - veg tanning may use fish oils.... horrors! @Handstitched yep always vegans being eaten - that veg diet makes them more juicy and succulent, I guess. Do you think all human vegans will be too, in case cannibalism comes in after an 'apocalypse'? I mean, we are all animals aren't we? Or is that thinking politically incorrect as well? Early morning me is a bit more blunt. sorry.

@Nicbards Umm. I think I will leave the making of cod liver oil to someone else. As it is, it smells strong. This process sounds stinkier(is there such a word?). If you could see your way to putting up information on your cod liver oil treated leathers periodically, that would be nice. I am a little leery of using it, because of the smell.

Back to the original topic of this thread - mycelium leather. The more I read about it, the more interesting it sounds, as long as they completely kill the cultures. It is even supposed to smell like leather - a big plus for me because I hate the plasticky smell of PU and some 'high-end' beautiful, plasticky leathers. I am perfectly willing to discard a bag - bio-degradable after all - rather than have it come alive and heal itself. Something icky about the idea of a fungus being made to come alive in this way. But that's just me.

My great grand-mother used to say that each time there is an excess load on earth, nature auto-corrects with natural disasters and pandemics until balance is restored. Seems to be the path we are on now, whatever the rhetoric. Maybe we should all remember the wisdom of our ancestors. Nature always auto-corrects - and we are just another animal, never mind our arrogance in thinking we are special. We are not and are as dispensable as the dinosaurs.

@327fed Hmm, scientist myself. I doubt that it is balderdash. Far too much evidence for it to be so. Global warming does not mean that it suddenly becomes very hot. It is a far more complex issue. Looking at isolated bits will not give the whole picture. As I said earlier, rather than the fact that changes are happening, it is the speed at which it is happening that is of concern. But then, people have always been resistant to change and new ideas. This thread, after all, started with mycelium leather and here we are, discussing climate change - in both subjects, many not really wanting to accept new ideas. Mycelium leather might become very popular or perish as some fad and it will not affect us much. Global warming denial however, can have far reaching consequences.

@Nicbards That is just beautiful!. You say you have experience using cod liver oil. Do you have any leather that was treated with it from a while ago? Maybe we could add your experience to the knowledge in this thread. We are all trying to contribute our experiences as well as doing that experiment. The more people that contribute, the more the information available here. Cod liver oil is expensive though. @Northmount if you could get the Instagram photographs visible here, everyone could see them, over time. Thank you.

I think that the main issue is the speed at which climate change is happening. Through the millions of years there have been very hot and very cold periods but they came on much slower, so everything adapted gradually, This time, it is very swift on the geological scale because we have contributed to it. If we look at the larger picture, we are a part of nature as well, like the dinosaurs were. But we do not like what is happening and it can cause us trouble. That is why all the concern.

@Nicbards I'm not on Instagram. Do you have it anywhere else?

@Nicbards Yes, we missed that. But then, I don't know if anyone here uses it now. did not know it oxidized into the leather. That would make it a very good conditioner. I will see if I can get some, though the smell really gets to me.

That the earth is warming up is true. We can see the results. Surely no one can think that all the climatic changes, the increasing number of natural disasters happening the world over are planted in the media, as a massive conspiracy.! And it is happening because of human actions. There are records and geological evidence other than ice cores that indicate changing climate patterns, going back further than 800,000 years. There are ways to determine time scales. But that does not mean that global warming is not causing serious harm. After all, all through these millions of years there were no humans to destroy everything in their path - that is what we do, sadly. So we really cannot apply what has happened over the millennia to what is happening now, other than to compare, like the scientists are doing now, and realize that this is unprecedented. And not everything is a conspiracy @chuck123wapati. No one makes up so much stuff just to get a salary - other than the section of the media that make everything into a conspiracy. It's all very well to bury one's head in the sand, when one is living in areas which will be the last to be excessively affected by climate changes, like we do. For people in places like the Maldives, for example, who face loss of their entire country, it is reality. Bangladesh faces loss of lands as does India and many other parts of the world. The US coastline too, for that matter, is threatened. @kgg You are right. Scientists see changes happening and literally bumble around, trying to find the cause. They are often mistaken and then work their way to determining the actual causes - it could take years or decades, but they are at least trying. It happens all the time. Hardly. People have been speaking about their own preferences and what they themselves would use - personal choice - not what others should use.

@chuck123wapati Yes. The one thing we humans should not forget, for all our arrogance, is that we are animals too. We are as dispensable as the dinosaurs and other now extinct life forms. The earth will recover from most of our idiocy; humans, probably not. In fact, I often think the earth and its flora and fauna would be better off if we were all extinct. @Sheilajeanne I have moved around so much, I do not have the advantage of seeing the world change as time passes. I wish I did. What a sense of continuity that must be - you have seen what was before, you see what is, now, and can pass that to those coming in. @purplefox LOL. Most of us are in that camp! @Sheilajeanne I agree about Chinese food. I think most food, when shared with other communities and cultures, is modified to suit those tastes.

@Sheilajeanne I grew up in Mumbai, India. My family was very strictly vegetarian, which meant dairy but no eggs. Our meals were always very structured, as are most Indian meals - vegetables, lentils/pulses, rice/chapati and curds/milk at every meal - everything always freshly made. Desserts rarely, except for fruit. These essentially covered all the nutrient requirements. But then, I realized I was allergic to milk - so I became truly vegan while everyone else continued to be vegetarian. My mother cooked more greens, beans etc. to ensure I had sufficient Calcium growing up. My mother and I had meats rarely, maybe once every few months. We couldn't eat more even if we wanted to do so - didn't feel like it. This diet is what my doctor is enamoured of. For vegetarians, we made our curds at home, It was always live cultures - so great for the digestion as well. Indians have not much talked about their own food all these years. What is available everywhere as Indian food like butter chicken and lassi with lots of ghee and butter, is mostly the food eaten by North Indian farmers - they needed those calories in the past, but no one needs them now! Anyway, that is not what people eat day to day. Rather like no one lives off barbecue and lobster daily. I know there are protected parks here as well. I hope they continue to be protected. Keeping my fingers crossed that no politician finds that protected lands have oils or other valuables to dig for. Sometimes I wonder at people. I just read an article where some people are thinking of not killing the mycelia completely while making mycelium leather so that it can '"heal itself" if damaged. So they think the mycelia will obey and grow only when directed and otherwise remain dormant. Even if they found a way, I'm not sure I would want to use leather than can come alive. That's just me though.

@Sheilajeanne you are so right. Vegans have not really thought so far, have they? Most just talk a lot about things that sound good to them. I don't think most of them wonder whether what they want is plausible. Living off the land is what more and more people seem to want to do. Earth ships, for example. Not surprising. After a while, all this materialism is tiring. Hopefully those who do go back, will not destroy the original flora and fauna in the process. Sometimes, clueless well-meaning people do more harm than good. And preserving the original lands.. I wish I could see that. Here, there is a lot of greenery but very little is the original vegetation. There surely are tracts of untouched lands all over the country. I hope they remain hidden and safe and are preserved. Our descendants deserve to see as you say, what a healthy, untouched landscape really looks like. Veganism is not easy to do just off the bat or by reading about it online. I know so many vegans with terrible health problems because of their diet. They seem to do very little that is right, long term. I lived my entire childhood and youth as a vegan and did not even know until I came to the US. But our diet was developed over centuries and is well balanced - all the proteins, carbs, minerals etc. included in the balanced meals. Of course, my doctor is delighted and suggested I go back to it.. She took down all the information carefully and is probably encouraging others to eat similarly. She is right. I am much more active and alert since going back to it, for the most part. I cannot resist a good barbecue (learnt to like when living in the mid-west) or burger once in a while though.

@RockRash that is not a mess! That is neat and clean! Your sleigh bell straps look great; the scrap one too. The holly leaves look fine, they look natural.

Considering the stuff that has been passing under the heading of 'vegan' leather, I'm not surprised people are skeptical. A bit of skepticism is good, especially when playing around with fungi. If that makes people who question, modern day 'Luddites' so be it. This is similar to turkey 'bacon' and veggie 'burgers' - taste fine in their place but not as replacements; as other options? Certainly.