Sarcodon Mushroom

Grey blue and greens from Sarcodon mushrooms!

I'm so happy with the results. I collected some mushrooms and made sure to do a bit of identification and yes! I was correct. I had a good handful of them but was sat that I had missed a few rotten ones. After looking on this lovely woman's blog, I ran back and picked all the rotted ones I could find. From what I have read, the rotted (or naturally fermented ones) have more blue to them. The other non typical way of getting this color - you have to boil the mushrooms with the yarn in the pot. It's the heat that transfers the color? PH was around 7. In turn you then have to have some wool yarn that can handle being boiled. These samples are gala yarn from dharma trading and was mordanted with alum and cream of tartar. The dye bath is a muddy red color and I had the yarn in the pot about 15 minutes? Smooshing it while boiling with the mushrooms to get it really mixed in.

From left to right - all with alum and cream of tartar mordant.

First dip 15 minutes boiled.  Second dip added a pinch of washing soda 20 min boiled.  third dip boiled 15 min. Last dip I added a bit of iron (not much at all) boiled for 15 min.

I was loosing the blue's by the 4th dip but surprised of how much color was left in the pot.  I wonder how blue it would have been if I added washing soda from the start.  Rinsing it took some of the red tones away and letting the blues shine through.

Speaking of mushrooms...

I have some cute crochet mushrooms up for sale on my Etsy page (click here).

Go check out all my items including my hand spun,plant dyed yarns, (click here

Mycopigments

Mushroom Dyes!

Attended a lovely workshop presented by :

Alissa Allen - Mycopigments

 Very informative class with wonderful thick paper handouts (small things make the difference sometimes) and color photos of the mushroom in our area!  I really appreciated the class was representative of what mushrooms are in our own backyard.  Sometimes searching brings up mushrooms that are only in Australia, for example and its always a let down.  However she told us about her "swap page" on FB where you can trade :)  I hope to start foraging as soon as the weather breaks.  



This is Alissa's sample of mushroom dyes she travels with - along with her mushroom guy.

We folded a silk scarf, shibori style, as well - I choose the green'd pot (mordant with Iron) of Dyer's Polypore   - my silk was a bit white for my taste but we didn't have much time to wrap so I was just trying it out.  I know I can get better results later when I take my time.

These were Hapilopilus nidulans (top yarn) and Rock Tripe - lichen (bottom)

Starting on left = Hapilopilus Nidulans (again with different lighting than above photo) , Hydnellum Spongiosipes (with Alum) , Phellondon Niger (with Alum), last on right is Phellondon Niger (with Iron).

This is the roving I brought to then dye in the large pot of (mordant with Alum) of Dyer's Polypore.  Its a mix of dark and light Blue Faced Leicester which I thought would look great with the yellow - and I was right.  I spun up later at home.  

Such a wonderful rainbow from mushrooms! 

Mushroom Weather