An infectious education

On a recent Saturday morning, a group of local weavers, fiber artists and sheep farmers congregated in Chico State’s Herbarium to explore the magic of fungi. Sherri Scott, local farmer and GRUB Education Programs member, led the workshop, which outlined the importance of an increasingly popular practice—using mushrooms and lichens for sustainable dyeing.

“I first got into mushroom hunting in the late ’90s, when I was living in San Francisco,” Scott said. “On a whim, I went out on what they called a ‘foray’ with a group. It was magical. There were so many shapes and colors of mushrooms hiding everywhere. I started doing it around here, and began collecting mushrooms and playing around with dyes. Then, with Chico Cloth, my interests became more focused.”

A project affiliated with the Mount Lassen Fiber Guild, Chico Cloth’s mission is to create fabrics made from regional fiber sources, with the eventual goal of creating a completely “Chico” linen, made exclusively from Chico-grown plant materials. As the project grew, finding environmentally friendly dyes became an important part of the process.

“We all know that commercial clothes are dyed with a lot of chemicals, and it’s not sustainable,” Scott said.

In recent years, the movement to challenge traditional clothing production and dyeing practices has gained popularity. Organizations like Greenpeace have brought attention to the toxic methods via their Detox My Fashion campaign. Since 2011 they’ve been encouraging some of the world’s most famous brands to create toxic-free clothing in the hopes of reducing heath problems and water pollution, which Scott said result from unsustainable dyeing techniques.

But mushrooms are more than a nontoxic alternative method for dyeing. “Because it’s just the fruit of the organism you’re using, it’s a very sustainable source of dye,” Scott explained. “With lichens, you’re using the whole organism, so it’s important to harvest only what has fallen from the trees.”

During her workshop, Scott experimented with seven types of mushrooms and one lichen to test the various dyeing options. “There are a lot of variables that affect the dye—from temperature, to the maturity of the organism, to the mordants used.” Mordants, she explained, are salts used to bring out the colors in a dye and some are quite toxic, while others are considered safe. For her workshop, she used alum (generally used to brighten colors) and iron (mostly to darken), which are the two most commonly used mordants.

When it came time to create the dyes, the participants had a busy morning ahead of them. In all, the process took about 4 1/2 hours.

So how do you dye with mushrooms? First, the mordants were dissolved in water, simmered with the fiber that would eventually be dyed. Scott brought four fibers to experiment with: silk, wool, cotton and linen. Next, the mushroom dye bath was created by cooking the fungi in water for roughly an hour, before dyeing the fibers in the bath. What results is an array of color options as seen from Scott’s workshop, from beige hues to yellows and even bright pinks, produced by the Hypomyces lactifluorum, also known as the “lobster mushroom.”

While some of the mushrooms used in her workshop aren’t native to Chico, she says a few can be found around the area. “The Western Jack O’Lanterns can be found around the foothills; they attack dying oak trees. They’re dark golden orange, and they can actually glow in the dark—hence the name.” Wolf lichen, which produce shades of yellow from the dye process, are also found around Butte County.

Scott usually searches for fungi treasures around Butte and Plumas counties, but she finds that coastal areas are the best spots for finding mushrooms; Fort Bragg is one of her favorite spots. But mushroom hunters don’t have free rein everywhere. “Depending on the year and the area, the Forest Service may require permits. They’re often free, but you need to be registered as a commercial hunter, which is someone who harvests edible mushrooms to sell.”

While it’s unknown exactly when the practice of dyeing with mushrooms began, popularity rose in the 1970s, when experts began publishing their findings, such as Miriam C. Rice and her book, Mushrooms for Color. “She kind of started the craze, and most of that was around Sonoma County and the Scandinavian countries, and now there are worldwide symposiums on fiber and fungus.” Scott joked that it would have been fun to go to last year’s gathering, but it’s location in Estonia made it a little difficult to get to.

For other mushroom guide books, Scott recommends two from author David Arora: All That the Rain Promises and More and Mushrooms Demystified, which fans affectionately refer to as the bible of mushroom guides.

With recent winter weather conditions, mushroom growth was especially impressive, bringing more attention to the important natural resource. “There was a boom in mushrooms for a while. Everything’s drying up now, but for a while we were getting a lot of rain, and it wasn’t too cold, and mushrooms were becoming part of people’s consciousness.” While Scott has no workshops on her calendar for the immediate future, the fungi enthusiast is happy to swap stories and talk future events with anyone interested. Contact her at sherri@grubchico.org for more information.