Batik Fabrics....and time management
I had a really good morning today at Rikki Oiutis's class at Cottenham. Today we had a go at batik and I used several of the fabrics I have dyed in the last few weeks. Rikki uses soy wax as it is easier to get it out of the fabric. She had some melting in a large electric frying pan (skillet) and some in a melting pot which is good if you want to use a jantung.
I started off by cutting a stencil and then painting on the wax in a spiral design. (later, I over painted it with blue and red)
The next fabric I simply scrunched up and dabbed the wax onto it to create random texture. (I splodged red and purple dyes onto to this piece later on)
The yellow sample was folded in a concertina fashion and the edges dipped in the hot wax. I opened it, let it cool and then re-folded in the opposite direction and re-dipped it. (It was later painted with teal and blue)
The flowery piece was made by brushing on the wax onto pale pink fabric. (It was later painted with yellow and red)
I allowed them all to dry hard and then later, I painted them with soda ash and then with the Procion dyes we have used before. It was so lovely sitting on the grass under the apple tree doing this this evening. It is so warm here in Cambridge right now....I'm making the most of it while it lasts.
