Monday, July 27, 2009

Batik experiment

This past Wednesday my friend Martha and I tried soy wax batik. This was the first time either of us had done it.

We pre-soaked fabric in soda ash then used tjantings, empty thread spools, tjaps, luffas, and potato mashers to make our resist patterns. After the soy wax dried, we painted over the fabric with dyes thickened with sodium alginate. The fabrics were laid out in the sun to dry.


One of Martha's.


Mine.


Some of the fabrics were then reprinted with more soy wax and painted with a different color dye and dried again.

Martha's


Mine

Not always wanting white fabric showing, we tried previously hand dyed fabric. This gave a different starting point.

Martha's

Mine

At the end of the day we had some great fabrics. Will definitely do some more batiking before summers end.

2 comments:

JYA Fiberarts said...

Lovely fabrics! You did a great job. This is a method I have been going to try. Thank heavens there is finally some sun, and an oportunity to work outside!

Arlene Delloro said...

These are incredible, Susan. Your "ingredients" are foreign to me, but they surely work.