I loved learning about mycelium and the network it commands when I read the book by Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree, in 2022. I made a paper stencil of a variety of mushrooms in August, 2025, and stenciled onto green cotton I had dyed, but the quilt stalled as I assembled too many distracting elements. I took it apart and left the top alone, using the rest of it in Silver Dollar Gum (with Chickadees).
The top has been hanging around the studio, questioning me. I approached it again in March, 2026, and after layering walnut-dyed handkerchief linen behind the three mushrooms I had previously cut out, I layered in batting and pinned it to a backing piece and began free-motion quilting with metallic gold thread: the mycelium. I resisted the urge to cut it up. A friend said do not cut it up! Some velvet I had dip-dyed in the same bath as the quilt top became the binding, with a little engineering to make the corners work.
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