I’ve been collecting wind fall lichens around my yard and on hikes for several years now, so I finally decided to get off my butt and try dyeing with some. I’ve done chlorine tests on a few with mixed results, and eventually figured what the heck, I’ll just try some with the ammonia fermentation method of dye extraction and see what I get.
I took several glass gallon jars and loosely filled them about 4/5 of the way with lichen. One is Evernia prunastri, also known as oak moss lichen. I believe the other two are variants of shattered shield lichens. One bunch is from fruit trees in my yard, and the other are wind falls from douglas fir forests that I picked up from forest paths while hiking.
I added enough water and ammonia to fill each jar to around the shoulder level, leaving plenty of space at the top so I can shake it and aerate it. I used 1 part ammonia to 2 parts water.
Now I get to shake the jars once a day, and hopefully I’ll see some color changes over the next several weeks. I’ll be letting them ferment for around three months before attempting to dye anything.
Crossing my fingers… and I’ll try to post when I start to see changes!