A day with my mushrooms; dye experiments

I've been collecting road side plants for a while now. Always curious about the little inconspicuous plants that jump out at me on my walks.  

This past summer while walking up from my first swim at Medomak, I spotted along the side of the woods, two large bright orange- things popping out from the leaves. 

At closer look I notice these bright growths are mushrooms. 

Something happens when I find a new mushroom, lichen or plant where I don't know it's potential yet. I become a crazed person, stopping everything, using what ever I have on my person, shirt, skirt, (in that moment) towel that I usually wear around my middle after swimming to cover parts I don't care for others to see. Like my glow in the dark thighs. 

But once I saw this orange- time stopped and I stopped thinking of my whiter than pale thighs. I was more happy about my weird mushrooms. 

After some investigating, I found it was the lobster claw mushroom. Also known as

 Hypomyces lactifluorum. Dyeing with this fresh mushroom and adding ammonia to the dye bath, our yarns came out a light salmon pink. I was pretty excited about it. As the summer progressed into fall, my mushroom foraging grew to such an obsession. I spent a lot of time in my sister's new woods in Bowdoin where my two small nephews and niece helped me collect, filing my basket full of every mushroom they found. 

Back home I sorted each batch, cutting them into tiny pieces and letting them hang out outside to dry or in my basement. I did invest in an inexpensive dehydrator to help get the job down quicker. It speeds up the process for drying. Drying the mushrooms is essential for storing for later use. 

This week I knew would be the week to go through my stash. Over this past year I managed to stuff TWO plastic grocery bags FULL of dried foraged mushrooms. All labeled with the date, location, and if I was able to identify it- the name. If not- I made one up. But you know, it just feels better to know with out a doubt what a mushroom is. I still need to find a good mushroom book. 

After I decided on which ones to work with, I weighed each pile, in grams, made notes, put them in a mason jar, filled with boiling water, placed in large lobster pot filled half way with water. I made a little note of which mushroom on a piece of masking tape, stuck it on the end of a wooden skewer and put it in the jar. I love to multi task and I don't feel normal if I'm not multitasking, but I also can't hold all this info at the same time. I have to write things down. Also, having these notes is always good for comparison later with each dye test. 

Measuring out & grinding hard black puff balls. 

Red gilled cort bath- beginning

Lobster claw bath

First look at red gilled bath!!!

From left to right: a type of black hedgehog, 4 baths of lobster, 2 of red gilled. All in process. 

A few days before the mushroom dyeing, I mordanted several small sample skeins of 100% wool and small strips of silk fabric. In each jar went a strip of silk and a skein of wool yarn. 

Bright spots in a sea of beige. 

When I'm dyeing with a plant for the first time and I'm waiting and I'm exited to see the color result, I've had to teach myself not to really "look" at the color until it's all done and dried on the fiber. 

Mushrooms I dyed with: (if it has a * I made up the name because I can't figure out what it is yet)

Red Gilled- 5g

Lavender (looks like cortnilius)8g

hard black puff balls 5g

hedgehogs- black 23g

phalis 12g

cort 2g

lobster claw 2g

polypore 19g

Nov- mushroom 35g

thelephora terrestris11g

tiny soft puff ball 5g

white fungus with pink edges 41g

tiny orange hedgehogs 2g

turkey tail 14g

pail turkey tail 20g

small poly pore 20g

I knew the red gilled and the lobster where absolute givers of color- the others where blind experiments. 

Those two mushrooms- the red gilled cort and lobster where just stunning. STUNNING! STUNNING! STUNNING!

It's official. Though red gilled is wonderful, the 5 grams I used only lasted through 4 dye baths where the 2 grams of lobster claw mushroom lasted through 6! The first dye bath of lobster with just alum was bright orange. I then added ammonia for the next dye baths and lovely pinks. 

Have you dyed with mushrooms? Share your stories with us here!

About to board a plane to San Francisco where I'll have 8 days to explore Califonria's spring and budding flora and fauna. 

I've got collection bags & silk fabric packed for creating Eco prints! So excited to discover more dyes plants!

If I remember to, I'll post to FB at 44 clovers, Pinterest and Instagram my findings along the way:) 

Happy Weekend!

Dyeing with onion skins in Ireland

The other day I finally boiled up my two months worth of red onion skins. What a delight I found! I've done this a few times back home in Maine using alum. I have loved the brilliant almost blinding yellow I get. However, this time, it was different. 

The dye bath to begin with was a peach orange color. I thought, Cool!! Wow! What's going on? Then projects started to materialize in my head for this color. I strained the onion skins off by pouring the bath into a plastic tube with a colander inside the tube so to save the skins. The bath was so dark! I poured my onion skin free bath back into the pot, added a few crystals of alum. I should note, even though this was alum, it was a different form than I used at home which was powered or granular- like white sugar. I thought, no bother, it's all the same. I added my first skein of pre soaked yarn. I was careful to match the water temps so the yarn wouldn't get a shock. 

A few weeks back when we had traveled to Co. Donegal, I had bought four balls of pure kid mohair from Studio Donegal. The yarn is from the Breezemount Farm in Donaghadee, Co. Down. Looooooove this yarn. Soooooo much:)!  I skeined all four balls for dyeing. In the first skein went. After the dye bath heated up again, it went a dark hunter green. I let it simmer for a bit. About half an hour and then pulled it out afraid that it got too dark. I rinsed my yarn a lot letting the excess color run out. It hurt a little to see all that color leave the yarn but I knew it was the right thing to do as it was only sitting on top of the yarn. After several rinses it remained a lovely soft silvery sage to light pea green. I'm very pleased with it. 

I had those lovely onion skins still remaining with out mordant in them so I created a 2nd dye bath. Pre soaked more yarn, let the onions boil again, then I strained off the skins again. Put in a 2nd skein and watched it cook and heat up also letting the temp gradually climb as to not damage the wool. The color with out the mordant was a sort of maple brown, really did not want brown so I added one crystal. The color changed to a lovely golden color. After this yarn soaked and cooked a while, I took it out and added a 3rd skein letting it do the same. This time because the alum was already added in the bath, the yarn introduced to it became a slightly more greener version of the golden. Dare I call it chartreuse? 

Over all I am so pleased with this lot of dyed yarn. The colors are interesting. The yarn feels the same as before it was dyed. And through the process I added new techniques that in the end added to the quality of the yarn. 

Last night I came across a lace pattern in my super stitches book that I may use with all this yarn. A lace shawl perhaps??? That I design on my own?! I think it's time I try.