Start-up with dyeing - Part III. Sampling

I have continued to test wild mushrooms for color in the way described in the previous post:

1. After collecting the mushrooms, prepared a dyebath from them by simmering for ca 30-40 minutes, and then placed the liquid in the fridge for about 10C. And they stayed there unfortunately for couple of month. Those with a pH around 6.3 looked and smelled okay, those above pH7 had either bacterial or mold contam and smelled most of the time.


2. I have scoured the yarn (wool, Regina, color 002) by simmering for half an hour or so and then mordanted a third of it in alum, and another third in iron. It was the same mordant bath as in the previous post --> the yarns are still "over"mordanted, by using too much of the mordant (iron especially, so iron results I just disregard for these experiments).


3. After mordanting I prepared the test swatches (containing an unmordanted, an alum and an iron mordanted piece) and placed them by three into the hand warm dyebath, and simmered them for 60-120 minutes, depends. Unfortunately couple of time I didnt take enough care and the bath began boiling. I dont have a water temperature meter, but I plan to get one for the next experiments.


4. After the dyebath I washed and placed to dry one of the test swatches. Another one I put into warm water, with pH 4.5 (modified by white vinegar) and the third one in pH 10, modified by ammonia. These I simmered for another half an hour.

Below are the results (again, photomashine still sucks).

From left to right:

• 3 unmordanted samples, with acid, normal and alkaline pH, then
• 3 alum mordanted and thereafter
• 3 iron mordanted, pH row the same.

Oh, and yes I used to have photos of from the time I collected the fresh mushrooms for identification purposes, but my laptop got recently stolen (from the backpack of the car, in front of a police station...) and there it went all my photos from earlier times, including the most uptodate version of my strain database :((((. I am still crying when I am thinking of it. Learning: backup backup backup your files.

Calvatia excipuliformis

I used the already ripen (and thus dark) sporemass of one specimen.

It gave a rather pale goldenish in acidic range, and pale green on higher pH levels. No significant difference between unmordanted and alum mordanted yarns, but I havent tested light and washfastness yet.

It seems as an interesting candidate for dying, provided you are not craving for some very striking colors.

They say it is saprotroph, so I might give a try to its cultivation later on (especially that it is edible when young)

  

Panaeolus antillarium

I found this one growing on the top of a heap of sheep poo, on an anotherwise nice pasture. I am pretty sure it is Panaeolus and there is some likeliness that it is antillarium... I collected very cautiosly some 5-6 of them on their long stems. The gills were pretty dark already, they were however not very old mushrooms.

On the photos you might see some difference, but as I am now looking at the test swatches next to me, they actually all look the same pale beige. It is a dye dud suspect, in fact.

I might try later with older specimens.

Scleroderma citrinum

It was ca. half a handful of ripen specimen with greyish-brown sporemass.

It give a strong light brown, especially with alum and without post-dyeing simmering in water with modified pH. As will be seen for a next post, I managed to keep dyeing with this dyebath, so S.citrinum is a good candidate.

 Too bad it is mycorrhizal and cant be cultivated on its own. These ones grew around Castanea sativa (sweet chestnut) mixed with pine and silver birch, in moss, in larger groups.

Some of them hosted a parasitic Bolete, with the creative name Boletus parasiticus. (those parasited Scleroderma were not used for the experiment, though would have been interesting as their interior is at times differently colored than normal Scleroderma) 

Xerocomus armeniacus

With Xerocomus and Boletus species one must be very careful with identification.
This one grew under an oak tree next to the road (and exclusively under that one tree, nowehere else was I able to find this species), and it kept producing new fruitbodies every couple of weeks throughout the summer-autumn period. They were mostly present with blue Russulas, the Xerocomus being at the bottom of the small hump where the water flows and is more moist and the Russula up on the hump with about a meter.
I was always eager to find them, mostly not even picked just awed and photoed. They had really pretty velvety apricot-reddish caps, were not growing too big, while flesh and stem bright yellow, both staining blue when touched. Based on this my best guess became X. armeniacus. Unfortunately they were prone to be attacked very early by a mold, that was even quicker than maggots...

I made two separate dyebath following the same principles from two separate collections from the same place (specimen not too old either case). If you check below, it is stunning how same the results are.

Alum gave the best colors (pale green). Interestingly, strongest colors came on the test swatches simmered in pH 4.5 water after the actual dyebath, both on unmordanted and on alum mordanted swatches.

Test nr.1.

Test nr.2.

Xerocomus communis

These lads were growing at a number of places, in the forest as well as in the middle of the city on alleys. I think they were closest to X. communis, as had small size (up to 5-10 cm), cap yellowish with cracks that are often reddish, red dots in the base of the stem and very very often full with maggots, and is blueing upon touch.

Used specimen were not too old, not too young average shrooms, and they gave strong light green on alum after acidic afterbath and strong light brown on higher pH ranges with or without afterbath. And best of all I could keep on using the dyebath thereafter for a number of yarns :).

As all Xerocomus species, it is mycorrhizal, so no hope for a small home production for a while.