12.09.04 | 4:44 pm
Knitting and Fungi

I found a way to link knitting with the study of fungi!

Early dyes were made from lichens and some still are. The lichens are obligate sybioses which means the fungi can't live without the algae, and the algae, except for a few cases, can't live without the fungi. Sometimes there are bacteria in the mix too. The lichens make all sorts of pigments as a result of metabolism.

Purple dye was made from lichens as a cheap substitute for the expensive purple dye from shellfish, and at the same time as this discovery you see purple not only used in royal clothing.

But to come back to the present, and to leave most of the science out, Harris tweeds are still dyed with lichens! There is a smell to them that is a remnant of the dye. You need to have a special permit to harvest because they are slow growing and vital to economics.

Around the midwest you can easily find Letharia vulpina, Wolf Lichen, which stains a chartruese color. Here is a bit more about dyeing with lichens.

This isn't something I recommend because the lichens are so slow growing (2-3 mm a year), and because the are difficult to identify accurately.

I just think it is pretty cool that I can relate knitting to fungi.

I also found a swedish woman who has a page about dyeing with mushrooms. I haven't seen these around here, but we have a lot of Cortinarius species.

Another knitting and fungi link - I started another pooling colors scarf while listening to presentations in the fungal biology class.

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