On another page I talked about collecting lichens from the rather remote Cabo da Roca. Once we were home I realised not only had I found Roccella fuciformis but also Roccella phycopsis. They are similar but in the case of the latter it’s the cortex that tests positive with a bleach test.

I followed the same steps using the ammonia method but as I had only 6g of the lichen I wasn’t expecting much. The colour, however, appeared much more quickly and about 10 weeks later the dye bath was a deep maroon.

The colour was so rich in fact that I used only half of the dye bath with 25g of sock yarn. The result was a nice vintage mauve. Wanting a slightly deeper colour I added the remaining half to the pan with another 25g sock yarn and repeated the dye process. The result was a nicer, deeper colour. So I had used just 6g of lichen with 50g yarn (approx 1:8 ratio). If I am lucky enough to find this lichen again I would increase the ratio for even more colour. Still nice though.