Now I know it’s going to be a great mushroom season—I joined a friend this afternoon for a hike to Ambrose Lake, and right beside the trail we found a stump just overloaded with Velvet pax. (Note the fuzzy brown stems befitting its name. This mushroom is very easy to identify—it grows on old, mossy fir stumps or on the sides of mossy logs.) Unfortunately, my camera announced that its battery was gone, so I had to wait until I got home to take this picture.
The dried mushrooms on the right are from an earlier hike in our own back forest; the fresh ones on the left are from today’s hike. I counted twelve specimens, all from the same tree!
I’ll dry all the Velvet pax I find until the season is finished. This should be a marvellous dyepot!
SHROOMWORKS 
just discovered your blog and am excited to peruse more – i am a textile artist just across the water in the comox valley, and am eager to expand my natural dyeing into fungi this fall (i already love foraging them for eating). i’m so excited to discover such an expert who will be using much of the same ‘shrooms i have access to!
Great to meet another potential mushroom dyer! I hear rain might be in our future later this week, so I’m mordanting as much fibre as I can in preparation. I’m thinking of offering another mushroom dye workshop this fall, but it would have to be after our October 15 Mushroom Festival. I like to offer participants a chance to go on a foray or two ahead of time, so they can learn about what to collect and where. I know it’s inconvenient to get to the Sunshine Coast from the Island, but I wonder if you’d be interested. Beautiful blog, by the way!
I might be interested in that – it would actually be fun to visit the coast again as I lived in Gibsons and Roberts Creek a few years back but haven’t visited since. I’ll keep an eye on your blog and see if you plan anything. It’s funny your Mushroom Festival is the same weekend as the one in Bamfield too – I’d love to go to either, but I will be in Seattle that weekend for an art show I’m in. Next time!