first time is the charm
venturing into mushroom dyeing, and knowing little about mushroom identification, i picked the first sizeable and convenient one i could find, growing right at the base of a big douglas fir at the edge of our driveway, dropped it, whole, into a pot of water on the woodstove along with a small bit of alum-mordanted roving, and - voila - came out with a lovely rich golden orange shade!
after much sleuthing through books and blogs, it turns out, as luck would have it, what looked like a cinnamon roll growing at the base of that tree was a young dyer's polypore, Phaeolus schweinitzii!
...which also means that this tree is dying (no pun intended) but i'll keep an eye out for more mushrooms until then, and make the most of it.
further research indicated it would give olive greens with iron mordant, so i added some "iron water" and that is exactly what i got.
i chopped the mushroom up, simmered further, and continued to get more golden shades, as well.
(picture taken at the base of the tree where the mushroom was found)
first time is the charm
venturing into mushroom dyeing, and knowing little about mushroom identification, i picked the first sizeable and convenient one i could find, growing right at the base of a big douglas fir at the edge of our driveway, dropped it, whole, into a pot of water on the woodstove along with a small bit of alum-mordanted roving, and - voila - came out with a lovely rich golden orange shade!
after much sleuthing through books and blogs, it turns out, as luck would have it, what looked like a cinnamon roll growing at the base of that tree was a young dyer's polypore, Phaeolus schweinitzii!
...which also means that this tree is dying (no pun intended) but i'll keep an eye out for more mushrooms until then, and make the most of it.
further research indicated it would give olive greens with iron mordant, so i added some "iron water" and that is exactly what i got.
i chopped the mushroom up, simmered further, and continued to get more golden shades, as well.
(picture taken at the base of the tree where the mushroom was found)