Mona Boucher has been practicing dyeing using natural dyes for over 15 years. She specializes in proto-industrial scale dyeing of cloth in the piece.
Her chemical engineering background has been an asset to the development of her dye practice.
11/18/2024
Textile production in Bronze Age Anatolia:
This article from Antiquity examines two extant textile fragments with one showing evidence of nålbinding technique and was dyed with the woad or indigo plant.
Link in comments.
10/10/2023
Look at that beautiful colour from 1280AD.
03/04/2023
Bookcorner with Dominique Cardon on her new book "Paul Gout's 157 Colours"
Amazing colour samples of 157 wool broadcloth dyed with natural dyes by an 18th century master dyer.
EuroWeb Book Corner - «Paul Gout's 157 Colours» w/ Dominique Cardon A new edition of the EuroWeb Book Corner, dedicated this time to the recent book "Paul Gout's 157 Colours", by Dominique Cardon and Iris Brémaud (Les Mots Qu...
11/17/2021
Something for those interested in Viking age textiles and dyes:
"Textile Dyes from Gokstad Viking Ship’s Grave"
https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage4030129
The entire journal is open access and this particular special issue is on pigments and dyes in Archaeological and Historical Objects. Worth perusing!
Textile Dyes from Gokstad Viking Ship’s Grave The grave from Gokstad in Norway, dating to ca 900 AD, is one of the best-preserved Viking Age ship graves in the world. The grave mound contained a variety of goods along with human remains, buried in a Viking ship. Several textiles, including embroideries and shreds of what might have been the shi...
Fantastic video coming from last year's Making Invisible Visible colour workshop.
09/20/2019
Throwback to 3 years ago when I scaled up an organic reduction indigo vat in my backyard. This cloth was subsequently dyed black and is on display at the Art Gallery of the NWT's Social Fabric Art Show that opens today.
09/17/2019
I taught three natural dye classes this summer. This was a serie on reds using madder and cochineal. It is tough to dye using a charcoal fire (and to lug all your water in from the outside! 💪💪) . We didn't sustain as high of a temperatures as I usually get otherwise. The shades weren't as deep as I normally get. We used the one bath tannin-acid method on wool substrate except for handwoven small samples made up of wool/linen to shoe how this dye method doesn't work on cellulosic fibers. We dyed with Madder (both Rubia Tinctorum and Rubia Cordifolia) and cochineal (one bath with calcium carbonate and one bath without). I love love teaching and enthusiastic students. Hope to do to again soon. ❤️🧡💜❤️
09/17/2019
Athenaeum 2019.
Wow, I can't still believe we managed to fly in all this stuff from Yellowknife, NWT!
Athenaeum is a fairly new Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) event in the Seattle/Barony of Madrone area, and the best description I heard compared it to a medieval style science fair.
Here is my display of "Dyeing Cloth In The Piece Using Natural Dyes". It showcased my body of work developing processes and techniques to dye at a proto-industrial scale using natural dyes. All the cloths on display are wool.
It's funny, the people who got what my display was about were super enthusiastic and excited to chat with me. There aren't many dyers in the world, let alone in the SCA who dye cloth at this scale using natural dyes (yarn yes, cloth no). I really enjoyed talking about the challenges and future directions of my work.
I couldn't bring my 60 gallon copper pot but had a poster of it. I think it helped but having the actual humongous pot is what grabs the attention of those who don't get what it is that I do. 😉 Also helped that I had some goodies to give away.
10/10 would do again. Thank you to the organizers, the folks who came by my table and my family who made this day possible. I feel very supported and encouraged to further myself in this field. ❤️ @ Kirkland, Washington