The first part of this year's mushroom dyeing project is complete. It is a complete success! At least I am so happy about the results.
The quick story is that I put about 7 grams of wetted Lonk sheep fiber into the pot with the mushroom dye-bath and let it simmer for an hour then shut off the burner and let everything cool down overnight. The gold-y orange color is beautiful. Well, my husband doesn't like it but I do!
Since that worked so well I put four 7-8 gram pieces of Lonk fiber in a bowl with cold water with 10 percent alum dissolved in the water and let them soak 24 hours. Some people say 24 hour, others say at least 4 days. Well, I went with the 24 hours.
After rinsing the now pre-mordanted Lonk fiber, the fiber was put into the dye-bath and brought to a simmer where it sat for one hour. Turned off and let cool down overnight. This morning I pulled out the fiber and dried it off somewhat.
This is the results:
The fiber on the left is the un-pre-mordanted-with-alum fiber; the one of the right is mordanted. There is a difference. The fiber with mordant is a brighter color. I am so pleased!
So pleased that I went back out to the new fairy gardens on the lawn and picked a bag of white mushroom tops. They are Agaricadeae mushrooms according to Picture This app. Since they are white I have no idea if they will do anything but I am going to put in a plain piece of fiber and a mordanted piece of fiber tomorrow, simmer one hour, then let cool. I will let you know if we get different colors!
By the way...I believe the orange mushrooms are Suillacaeae.
