The International Fungi and Fibre Federation Newsletter 2015CanadaAnn Harmer Excitement is building among Sunshine Coast fibre artists, mushroom people, and the community in general. We’re talking about the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, on Canada’s West Coast, where plans are well under way for the 17th International Fungi & Fibre Symposium, October 17–22, 2016. We’re having a so-so mushroom season, as our summer was very dry and the fall rains came late, but with a lot of extra eyes looking for the dyers, we’re confident we’ll have enough mushrooms to fill our dyepots. And no matter what kind of mushroom season we have next year, we’re sure that Symposium attendees will be blown away by our lush, moss-covered forests and stunning scenery.Our workshops are coming together, too. In addition to some interesting fibre workshops (e.g., drop spindling, Nuno felting, “eco-printing” with Phaeolus), we’ll tempt you with some West Coast–inspired offerings: cedar basket weaving taught by a member of the shíshálh Nation, and an outdoor survival skills workshop. We’ve set March 1 as our deadline, at which time we’ll start taking registrations for the event. We’re looking forward to getting together again with old Symposium friends while welcoming newcomers to our fold. As I learned in 2008, once you attend one of these gatherings, you won’t want to miss another!See you next year! Ann Harmer

SCOTLANDTrisha Gowin August Marilyn,Veronica and Frances Hutson from Melbourne Australia met up at my house for a dyeing day in my garden -the weather was glorious.We had stalks and caps c.cinnamomeus; innonotus hispidus; hapilopilus nidulans; phaeolus schweinitizii; and a surprise pot of eucalypt leaves plus an unidentified bracket fungi which looked like bark!!

Marilyn CaddellFrank and I were walking along a glen near Blair Atholl Castle, in the Highland region of Scotland, at the end of September. In the garden of one of the houses we passed were four huge Douglas Fir trees. In front of one of them, quite close to the trunk, was a huge Phaeolus Schweinitzii. It was the biggest one I have ever seen and so beautiful! I knocked on the front door of the house – but nobody was at home. We went back the next day, before heading home. Still nobody there. So I wrote a letter – beginning “Hi. This will sound a very strange request, but I do hope you will read on!” I told him/her what wonderful dye potential that particular fungus had, to give beautiful yellows and greens for dyeing yarn and fleece. I said we would be up in the area the next week and collect the fungus if they were agreeable and I included my phone number and email address but I heard nothing for over a week.Then I got a phone call from a very nice man who was very intrigued and said that of course I could take the fungus. So up we drove for the third time. Alastair does research and lectures on International Relations at St Andrews University and his wife works for the UN in Laos and lives there with their children. He divides his time between St Andrews, Laos and the house in Blair Atholl. How lucky was I that he happened to be there at the right time for me!

The Phaeolus schweinitzii really is a humungus fungus. It is 45cm across and weighs 8lb. So much dye potential!! Maybe some of you have seen similar sized ones, but for me it was so exciting to see such a large one. I know they start small, yellow and velvety. This one is quite a dark brown with just a hint of gold at the edges of the rosettes, so I wonder if it is last years growth. I will attach some photos for your opinions. There was a much smaller one at the other side of the trunk and both were close to the trunk. I left the smaller one to grow and spread spores. The other three firs had no fungal growth at all. The velvety surface of the Phaeolus was covered in needles which were stuck as though to velcro. I had to pick each one off individually! A labour of love! So I must try to make something special with some of the dyes to take to Canada next year.

NORWAY Anna-Elise Torkelsen – Forum for soppfargereOn April 18 th, the Norwegian mushroom dyers met for their annual meeting. 36 persons participated – a good number – there are 175 members in the whole country. We had interesting lectures, one on Lichen dyeing which summed up the results of a workshop we had in spring 2014. The lichens give very nice colours; unfortunately the red and violet are not very lightfast. The members brought a lot of different mushroom dyed products for the exhibition we organized at the meeting. Some of our members are eager to learn more about how to dye linen and other vegetable fibers. So we had a day course in August where we mordanted linen with different mordants to see which is the best and the easiest way to mordant linen. We used alum acetate, tannic acid, copper sulfate and iron sulfate. Next spring we’ll have continue this work and dye the linen with different mushrooms – as far as we have seen the Phaeolus schweinitzii and Cortinarius semisanguinus give good colours to linen.Since cream of tartar has become rather expensive, we have experimented with mordanting wool without using cream of tartar. We have got some interesting results and we’ll present them at the 17 IFFS in Canada next year. Some mushrooms need cream of tartar to give the colours and others not.In November some Norwegian Mushroom dyers will participate in CEMM, the Meeting of the European Confederation of Mediterranean Mycology in Portugal. We have been asked to give a demonstration on how to dye with mushrooms. Last year, in Corse, we also demonstrated mushroom dyeing - and got a very good response. The hope is to get more people interested in mushroom dyeing.This year has not been a good season for mushrooms, not the edible ones and not at all for dye mushrooms – we are looking forward to a better season in 2016.

USA 2015 Susan Hopkins After an abundance of mushrooms at the 16th IFFS in Otepaa, Estonia, the fall 2014 collecting season here in the Adirondack mountains of NY was very disappointing. I had hoped to replenish my supply of Cortinarius semisanguineus but no rain meant no mushrooms. I had to be satisfied with the memory of all those dryers going non- stop with all those C.semisanguineus. The collecting season of 2015 proved to be much better over all than 2014 but the amount of dyers was still average. Rain started on June 1 and continued on a regular bases till about the first week of August. This resulted in most mushrooms appearing nearly two weeks earlier than usual. Now that I have lived here for six years, I have found many spots to check for various dyers. Phaeolus schweinitzii is always first, and most abundant. I have now found it growing on the roots of several different conifers besides Eastern White pine including Norway Spruce, Larch, and this year for the first time, on Balsam fir. Hapalopilus nidulans is always sparse but between late June and mid July I found it in five different places. H.nidulans is usually on small birch branches here but this year I found it on a 3” in diameter Balsam fir log. Not only was this unusual to find on a conifer but I was able to watch and pick small pieces off this log for about six weeks. The H.nidulans shared the other end of this 10 foot log with many Auricularia auricula fruiting bodies which swelled or dried up according to the weather. Two other dye mushrooms that came out over many weeks were Hypomyces lactifluorum, the “Lobster mushroom” and Tapinella atrotomentosa. I was surprised but pleased to see so many of these this year because they both fruited well last year. On July 31, 2015 I gave a talk/demonstration on mushroom dyeing at the annual Northeastern Mycological Foray (NEMF) held in New London Ct. This was a chance for me to collect and see mushrooms growing in woods of Oak, Beech, and other deciduous trees rather than the mostly conifers woods where I now live. Two interesting tooth fungi came in, one on every foray, both of which I have seen over the years but still do not know well. They were similar in appearance being light yellow- brown in color, zoned inside and both had a very lobed, rubber-like texture at the margin of the cap. One was smooth on the surface of the cap and had a hot peppery taste while the other had a thick, course hair and a mild taste. The smooth one I determined at home was Sarcodon piperatus and is a decent dyer of wool giving the blue-green colors of most of the Thelephorales. The other hairy cap one has gone back and forth between Sarcodon and Hydnellum but is now called Hydnellum cristatum according to Index Fungorum. A third tooth fungus also turned up in great quantity, Sarcodon scabrosum, but it is a weak dyer of blue-greens in my experience.

In mid September 2015 I taught a one week class on mushroom dyeing for the fourth time at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Six students, four with extensive fibre arts backgrounds, spent the week creating a full range of colors on wool yarns and roving. I gave one experienced student, Sandra David, a combined collection of Cortinarius malicorius, some from Sweden and Quebec, both old collections, and some from my Adirondack sites. She e-mailed me from home after the class to say she had run out of mordanted wool before the dye bath was exhausted after twelve baths from just 2 ounces of dried mushrooms. We also made paper from Trametes versicolor (turkey tails) and from Pycnoporus cinnabarinus and painted name labels from mushroom pigments. All the dried mushrooms used for dyeing and the prepared pigments were provided by me. One week later the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) foray was held in Black Mountain, NC, with 320 nationwide mycophiles in attendance. There were two cancellations in the program so I was asked last minute to do a mushroom dyeing presentation. There were many who had heard that some mushrooms could be used as dyes but they had not been exposed first hand to the colors. They had many enthusiastic questions and took lots of pictures. When I came home Gary Lincoff, author of “The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms”, was our featured guest at the first Adirondack Fungi Fest on October 3. Luckily the rain down south had followed me home so we had an impressive amount of all kinds of mushrooms to display at this public event. I had a table display of fresh and dried dye mushrooms with my mushroom dyed sweaters to show off the colors they made. Most people could not believe that the colors came from the mushrooms. After the Fungi Fest, while looking for Cortinarius semisanguineus, I found C.malicorius in two new places and a good collection of a Boletopsis sp. I had not seen any Boletopsis sp. for several years even though in 2010 I had found it in many places in late fall. This year was better than last but ended suddenly by mid October with two days of below freezing temperatures all day and snow and sleet. In the summer of 2014 I was asked to become Chair person of the Mushroom Dyeing and Papermaking Committee for NAMA by President David Rust. Over the winter of 2014-2015 Cheryl Dawson, Dorothy Beebee, Dorothy Smullen and I worked with David Rust on the new NAMA website to provide some basic, accurate information on the history and process of using mushrooms for dyeing and papermaking for the general public. Also provided are links to several related websites for more information and supplies. This can be viewed at http//www.namyco.org/mushroom_dyes_and_papermaking. The 17th International Fungi and Fibre Symposium will be held Oct 17-22, 2016 in British Columbia, Canada. As this is closer than usual I hope many Americans will be encouraged to attend. On a sad note I must report the recent passing in July of Viola Spock at the age of 94. She was a member of the New Jersey Mycological Association (NJMA) and of NAMA and served as Co-Chair with her daughter Melanie, of the Dyeing and Papermaking Committee of both organizations for many years. She was friends with Miriam Rice and attended the first Fungi and Fiber Symposium in Medocino, CA, in the early 1980s and many more IFFS after that. Many of us will remember her cheerful nature and eagerness to share her passion for mushroom dyeing.

Images from Susan Hopkins USA

Hypomyces Lactifluorum Phaeolus SchweinitziiTapinella Atromentosa Class of John C Campbell Folk School

ESTONIA - Airi GailitLast year we had the pleasure to host the 16th International Fungi & Fibre Symposium in Otepää, Estonia. We were lucky enough to have a good mushroom season and therefore had a plentiful supply of material to use for dyeing.There are a considerable number of people in Estonia who are fans of dyeing with mushrooms. The colour red tends to be everyone's favourite. It's difficult to get this colour from our plants but the mushrooms of the genus Cortinarius semisanguineus, an excellent source for red dye, can be found almost anywhere.In early spring I started work on a small glove collection inspired by Estonian national handicraft.I knit the gloves by hand from yarn dyed with mushrooms. Much of the work is done by using the traditional Estonian knitting technique called „roosimine”. At last year's symposium we had a workshop where Kristi Jõeste, an Estonian glove's artist, taught this knitting technique.

In September 2015 I gave a masterclass workshop in Russia As far as anyone knows, this was the first ever dyeing with mushrooms workshop held in Russia. During the two-day course I gave an introduction to the best mushrooms used for dyeing and we dyed both mordanted and natural yarn with 5 different species of mushrooms. The workshop took place in Polistovsky Nature Reserve and the participants were from all over Russia. Unfortunately, good mushroom forests are further away from that area, therefore we did nothave much luck with our mushroom forays. However, I did find mushrooms of the genus Hapalopilus rutilans.

It's such a shame that this year we had a particularly bad mushroom season in Estonia and now that

winter is fast approaching there are no more dye mushrooms to be found in our forests. I did have the luck to find, among others, a considerable amount of mushrooms of the genus Boletopsis grisea and Hydnellum peckii which I can use for dyeing.I have also started to take up an interest in the world of lichen and have collected many interesting samples that I will soon use for dyeing yarn. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone again in October 2016 at the 17th International Fungi & Fibre Symposium in Canada.

Wishing everyone lots of great and colourful ideas!Airi Gailit (text translated by Teele Tani)

MEMORIES OF ESTONIA

Fungi and Folklore in Estonia by Veronica Collins Scotland It was really the Estonian knitting that first attracted me. The knitting workshop did not disappoint. Kristi Joeste is a young enterprising Estonian woman, a graduate and teacher from Tartu University and also director of a company that supplies hand knitted gloves to Harrods and top end fashion labels. Kristi’s blog has images and descriptions that knock your socks off. Gloves have a long history in Estonia and there are different patterns for each locality and also for each stage in a woman’s life. There is a tradition of making a pair of gloves specially for a mother in law to be. I gather Estonian winters are very long and cold so gloves are treasured - especially as they take 25 hours for a professional knitter to make. I discovered that you can knit with five of the finest needles imaginable and that the pattern is not knitted like fairisle but integrated into the knitting. I think the process is called ‘rosing’. That is a flavour of the surprises that each day at Otepaa revealed. We travelled two hours on a very modern, regular bus service, from Tartu to our holiday destination. We arrived to find another coach waiting to take us on the first forage. To the forest we went, no time to loose. Truckles and baskets appeared from rucksacks and I discovered that the best plan was for me, as a complete fungi novice, to attach myself to a truckle holding person. The coach parked up in deep forest and we were warned on no account to get lost. My mental image of Hansel and Gretel and the wicked witch grew stronger and I kept a close eye on my companions. “Cortinarius sanguineus” someone said. “Phaeolus shweiizii” replied another. Ah I thought – serious spells indeed. There was a chorus of almost silent tutting when yet another little brown job was needlessly harvested. I decided to keep my hands in my pockets and my eyes and ears open.It was a surreal experience to be immersed in a forest in northern Europe not many miles from the Russian border this feeling of intrigue mixed with a pleasant strangeness set the scene for the whole holiday.In addition to the wide range of daily activities such as spinning, fish skin dyeing, felting and fungi dyeing, there was excellent local food, vodka and a rich folk history to enjoy. There was also chemistry, biology, mycology and botany. I learned how to respect the sauna elf and discovered that in old times the sauna was the first part of a dwelling to be constructed, it has deep significance in this part of the world. The sick and women in labour would go to the sauna to benefit from its restorative powers. I am a weaver and I have captured the joy I experienced in a tapestry depicting the young Estonian folk dancers that performed for us and danced with us near the end of our stay.It contains just a little of that Cortinarius semisanguineous dyed yarn as a lasting memento.

Fungi Fun in Estonia by Marilyn Caddell, ScotlandThe 16th Fungi and Fibre Symposium was held in Estonia – a new country for us to visit. I think all of us took time to see the beautiful capital, Tallinn. The symposium was held in Otepaa which is a winter resort for cross country skiing. The accommodation was by a lake in a beautiful wooded area. As always, there was a buzz on the first evening, as we met up again with fungi friends from around the world.The three young organisers, Airi Gailit, Katrin Jurimae and Mirjam Murmla, did a wonderful job. From 9 th – 14th September we had a full programme of workshops, which included yarn dyeing; fungi identification; various methods of dyeing silk scarves; nuno felting; needle felting; macramé knotting; Estonian carding and spinning techniques; dyeing fish skins and Roosimine – the traditional way of knitting patterns to embellish gloves, hose and other garments. So many to choose from. It was hard!I tried the knitting, which was done on very fine needles, doing intricate patterns by carrying the different coloured yarns across the surface of the knitting, rather than knitting the design into the stitches. Often a bride had to knit many pairs of these beautiful gloves and practical hose for her husband’s family. My other choices were shibori and etching techniques for dyeing silk scarvesWe had forays into the woods – half of Estonia’s territory is covered in forests. A great variety of species was laid out to look at. We also had a full day trip to the Suvahavva “wool factory”, where all the processes

were being done by one lady! This was followed by a lovely lunch of Estonian fare, after which a group of Seto ladies in local costume danced for us and sang leelos - songs following a thousand year old tradition. In the afternoon we looked round the Seto Farm Museum, learning about the Seto way of life, then drove on to see the Piusa sandstone caves. The largest bat hibernarium in Northern Europe is here, with seven species of bats arriving in October.Another day we were entertained by a group of students doing traditional country dances. The girls dresses were very colourful and the young men wore breeches and top hats. They were very enthusiastic and funny and persuaded some of us to join in.The celebration meal on the last night was held at a golf club. The spread of food at the buffet was fantastic. Afterwards, when it was dark, we went outside to watch fire dancers and set off paper lanterns. Back inside it was time for showing appreciation from us all to the organising committee, and for the next venue to be announced. Ann Harmer invited us all to travel to British Columbia in Canada in October 2016 for the 17 th

fungi and Fibre Symposium. Goodbyes the next morning were sad, but we all look forward to meeting up again in Canada.