Julie Beeler conceived of the Bloom & Dye workshop series to grow her work and passion to benefit what she values most: curiosity, education, creativity, collaboration, community, and the environment.
Fiber enthusiasts! Curious about fungi & natural pigments? Combine your interests and learn how to use mushrooms to create beautiful, vibrant, and nontoxic dyes perfect for any natural fiber. Often forgotten in the realm of textiles, mushrooms have long been used as natural dyes, yielding some of nature's most vibrant colors. Artist, farmer, and aspiring mycologist, Julie Beeler, will go through various dye techniques, as students explore the myriad of shades these forest friends offer us. She will cover general mushroom dye techniques, types of mushrooms and walk through the process of making dye baths and dyeing the fiber. Julie will teach everyone about the lake making process which is a great way to extract pigment from the mushroom dye baths, and convert the pigment into a solution for painting and printing. Learn the process of lake making and techniques for storing and using the pigment. Play with mixing mushroom pigments and explore different ways to mix, bind and apply the paint with natural materials. Students will leave with fiber samples, mushroom pigment samples, a large hand-dyed silk scarf, and an instructional craftbook including mushroom dye recipes.
