Batty about Batiks

Tuesday I batiked fabric again. It was such fun before, I had to do more.

This time I started with previous hand-dyed fabric as my first layer. I started with smaller designs first using soy wax and a tjanting tool. Overdyed the fabric with a darker color and let dry in the sun. I did some of the fabrics with a second layer of soy wax and larger designs and overdyed the fabric with a second darker dye.

These were done with one layer of soy wax.

And these were done with several layers of soy wax and dyes.

I feel I had more success this time around with the batiking. I learned to start off waxing with smaller designs first and with each layer of wax making the designs larger, also starting off with lighter dye colors and progressing darker.

Summer is more than half over and sooo many more surface design techniques to try!!!

We're in the middle of a heat wave now so I'll go back in the air-conditioning and continue with a work in progress.

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.