The mushrooms on the Sunshine Coast decided that 2017 would be a fallow year, a time for them to take a complete rest, gearing up to return next year in amazing abundance. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

A number of dyers didn’t even show themselves this year, at least not in my usual patches, including Dermocybes, Sarcodon fuscoindicus, Hydnellum aurantiacum and H. peckii, and Hypomyces lactifluorum. So I’m carefully using up most of last year’s stash while thinking of other ways I can make use of the few mushrooms I still have (as in eco-printing and, if I can figure out a way to make it happen, with kombucha—but more of that later).

All of this to say that I haven’t been in my studio lately as much as I’d like. From the evidence I found this week when I lifted the lid off what I thought was an empty dyepot sitting on my outside workbench . . .

. . . I’ve been away far too long! I went back to my notes and discovered I’d processed this Phaeolus pot with iron-mordanted roving over a month ago, and clearly a fungus of a different sort found the wool attractive, at least the parts exposed to air. I pulled the fibre out and found little black bits where the mould had found good resting spots.

I’m hoping to get a good supply of this lovely green, enough for a large spinning project, so I couldn’t bear to see this wool go to waste. As it turned out, after I washed the roving and pulled off the black bits, there seems to be no harm done.

I’m glad this is a forgiving medium.