IFFF Newsletters

‘Mushrooms everywhere!’

An abundance never seen before . We wander through the woods with a camera “to catch” the autumn fruit bodies of the hidden mycelia . We do not have baskets with us to collect specimens because… It is forbidden to pick them: nature protection rules. So we continue our mushroomdye-experiments for small projects with the material we brought from Norway or abroad.

We were blessed with a wonderfully rainy mushroom season for the 2016 Symposium on British Columbia’s West Coast, but the next two summers were so dry and the autumn rains so late that the dye mushrooms were hard to find and few in quantity. Fortunately, this year we’re back to our typical rainforest conditions, and the fungi are popping out everywhere.

In December 2016 and January 2017 some in the group were experimenting with varying the concentration of mordants. We tried 4 different mordants : alum, tin, iron and copper.

Irene and I gave a talk to the Cambridge Guild on Fungi Dyeing early in the year, which was enjoyed by all. A great many question and interest shown. I wish to mention Irene Taylder, who died in February, she was a very close friend and, I think I am right in saying, she has attended every symposium since 1993 in Scotland. Not only will she be missed by a great many fungi friends, she was a true a loyal friend to me and I miss her so much.

Activities have been limited because of my back problem but I did find a Phaeolus schweinitzii in October that I have started to experiment with. It was an earlier discussion with Carla Sundström that gave me the idea for this experiment.

Confusions sometimes can be so sweet. It was the result of one such small confusion that I was linked to Monica Svensson, Mushroom Consultant, National Association of Mushroom Consultants in Sweden . The result, I was flying to Sweden to present a paper in the 14 th International Fungi & Fiber Symposium 2010. It was just before I left India that I came to know the International Mushroom Dye Institute had been considerate enough to choose me for the IMDI sponsorship.

Greetings from Norway from Anna-Elise Torkelsen! The Norwegian Mushroom Dyers held their annual meeting on April 2nd. Our group has 135 members and 52 of them joined this meeting. The topic for the main lecture was “Alpaca – natural luxury”. The lecturer, Line Werner, who owns 27 alpacas, is keeping them for their wonderful fibre which is soft and not itching. The alpaca fibres when mixed with 40% merino wool give ”a nice wool”.

Greetings from Scotland. It is hard to believe that it is 26 years since we hosted the 6th IFFF symposium here in Edinburgh in 1993. Back then the Scottish Fungi Group had a good number of members, which has sadly diminished. We really miss Jeanette McKeown, and also Irene Taylder who died earlier this year. On the plus side we have welcomed Veronica Collins.

Last year’s mushroom season in Gran Canaria was especially abundant in Gymnopilus penetrans and G. spectabilis as well as the always generous Pisolitus tinctoreus. We put up a demonstration on Fungi dye during the local mycological fair held by the Sociedad Micológica de Gran Canaria where we showed off what we learned and did in Norway.

This year I have taught about eatable mushrooms and I also talk about fungi for dye at a folk high school in Sweden. There was a group of young girls who became very interested in pigment from mushrooms when I showed that you can dye yarn and paint with the pigments. These girls would start a group and want to dye together and they started immediately the same day!

Bountiful Fall Harvest in the Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest has had an incredible year for dye mushrooms. After a cool summer with plentiful rain followed by a damp but not overly saturated fall, we have seen more of the blue-green dyers (Thelephorales) than ever.

Hydnellum regium, Hydnellum peckii, Hydnellum aurantiacum group ,Polyozellus spp, Boletopsis spp and Sarcodon spp have been fruiting in abundance.