Often forgotten in the realm of textiles, mushrooms have long been used as natural dyes, yielding some of nature's most vibrant colors. In this workshop students learned how to use fungi to create beautiful, vibrant, and nontoxic dyes perfect for any natural fiber.

At Sterling College we spent a day in the forest, learning about and foraging for dye mushrooms. I walked students through the mushroom identification process and how to locate dye mushrooms using environmental indicators. The next day we spent in the studio going through various dye techniques, as students explore the myriad of shades these forest friends offer us. Everyone left with an understanding of how to find, forage for and identify dye mushrooms, wool fiber samples on their mushroom color chart they created, a large hand-dyed shibori kerchief, and an instructional craftbook including mushroom dye recipes.