Waxing

When waxing an item I like to use a colored, flexible cutting board to keep the wax from getting all over the table or the other side of a shirt.  These two pictures show how the color will show through differently after the wax is applied.  It makes it easier for me to tell where I've put the wax already as well as if it soaked in properly.  If the wax is too cold it will look different.

Sailing on a green sea

While I haven't been busy posting, I have been busy creating.  We moved this spring and immediately started remodeling.  That is my excuse.  Not that I couldn't have gotten out my stuff to take pics of finished work.

When waxing something I like to use a flexible cutting board to keep the wax from getting all over the table.  It is easy to clean off but the wax doesn't smear on the next scarf or shirt so I don't have to clean it every time.  And I prefer a colored cutting board as it makes it easier to see the wax I've put down.  Which helps so I don't miss any spots.  You can see in the pictures how the color of the board shows when the wax is applied.

Flower baby

For your little flower baby.  I'm glad purple is so popular now, I've always like it. 

My husband and I work with a lot of people in their 20's and 30s so there are a number of baby gifts needed.  I like to give them one of my hand dyed shirts.  Much nicer than a plain white one.  And since the design is done as batik it won't wear off the front from a lot of washings.  And the fiber reactive dye is quite resistant to drooling and washing. 

Newness

Not only a new design but a new item.  I found a supplier for infant top and bottom sets that offers long sleeves.  We are in Minnesota, after all.  These are still a nice, soft fabric.  The bottoms seem to have a bit more room in the seat.  Not being a Mom, I assume that is a good thing.  Babies grow so fast you want to have more time for them to wear it.

For the design, it is a retro-looking firetruck.  As you know, I like to decorate the rear end of babies.  Crawlers and new walkers spend a lot of time with their rears up on display so I like to put something cute on it.  The fire truck gets a hydrant.

Meow

I've been busy dyeing, even if I haven't been busy doing blog posts.  Another shirt using the Dances With Raisins color from Dharma with my leopard design.  Nice kitty.  I'll just sit quietly over here.

Eagle

A new batik design, of a bald eagle with a feather on the back.  Color is strong navy.

Garden

Well, this time of year we don't have too many butterflies, that is in flower or green.  But we can always think about it.  Just watch out for those bees.

Bright

I joke that this pink is bright so you won't lose your child in a crowd.  And the pattern done in batik is good for when you're taking a little girl to the zoo.  I figured I shouldn't put the lion on the front with one of the other animals.  It would be safer to have it on the back. 

Very girly.

Falling leaves

This is one of my new favorite colors.  Dharma calls it Dancing with Raisins.  It is a nice, rich ruby or wine red on soft rayon.

And the leaves and dragon flies scattered on it give it a windblown look. 

It is a good thing I got the large container of this dye color.  I think I want one too. Just think how nice this would look with my black wool winter dress coat.  Hmm, perhaps flowers instead.  But which ones?

Necklace

A batik design that looks like a necklace.  A border around the neckline, front and back.  The round shapes were inspired by one of my origami papers.  Considering how many cranes I've folded over the last several years, I spend a lot of time looking at origami paper.  It is a nice activity when you're on the phone with someone and need to pay attention but don't need to take notes or look something up.

The color is a nice golden brown.  Dharma calls it Palamino Gold. 

Crackles

Yes, some more silk hankies.  I told you I've done a lot of hankies.  They're a lot smaller, cheaper and easier to deal with than scarves.  I could cut a scarf into pieces, but it is nice to not have to deal with the edges raveling.

The one on the left was completely covered with wax then scrunched to get the wax to crackle.  Soy wax doesn't crack as much as paraffin, but it will crack.  I didn't start out to see what it would look like.  But the test  design I was trying to do was rather blobby and unattractive.  So I figured it was a good opportunity to see how it would turn out if I completely coated it on both sides.

The one on the right is to show what color the dye was.  Even though it was in a blue dye bath, the coated one turned out with a lot of purple.  A more extreme example of the color shift of fiber reactive dye on silk.  It is beautiful, but would be an awful lot of wax on one scarf.  I'll try doing some smaller circles on a scarf like this and see how it turns out.  Since the soy wax is degraded by the soda ash used in a dye bath the wax tends to wear off more on a larger item that needs to be stirred more.  But it should still look really interesting.

Dots

Well, I need a bit more practice. Some of the shibori designs are made up of (literally) millions of tiny dots such as in Kanoko. The grouping and spacing creates the image.
This is just a really simple design in that idea. Although I did it with soy wax batik rather than tying the knots. I used a tjanting, a little cup on a handle, to apply the wax by just touching it to the fabric. The size dot you get depends on how long you hold the tjanting in one spot as the wax flows out the spout and how hot the wax is. As it cools and thickens it doesn’t flow as fast.
The solid petals were filled in using the tjanting like coloring in with a pen. On the one in the upper left you can see the edges of some petals look like I started with dots and then filled in. Can’t imagine why they look like that…. So far, I prefer to use a brush to fill in the wax as I’m more used to it and the control I get. But this would be faster for larger areas as I have to dip the brush pretty frequently.
Like I said, I need more practice. I keep hoping I can learn magically and can be perfect on the first try but it hasn’t happened yet.

Tjap stamp

This is the latest try with my copper tjap. I'm getting better at it.

I got it pretty warm, I want to make sure it doesn't hold on to too much wax. But I want the wax to flow back off the tjap when I stamp the shirt. It worked well to have the piece of felt in my wax tray to limit the amount of wax the tjap was dipped in.

Having a padded board (wrapped in plastic) underneath made a difference. Since the tjap isn't completely flat the padding helped compensate.

The dye isn't as even as I wanted, though. I got some magenta areas. And I filtered it twice. A person on Paula Burch's forum mentioned that they use one of those durable metal coffee filters to filter the dye. I think I'll give that a try. It should stay in place better then the round, flat one in a funnel that I'm using now.

Stencil

I haven't been doing blog posts, but I've been busy. This is a new stencil I cut and a shirt I made using it.

Detail

This is a closeup of the detail on a leaf. Batik can be hard (for me at least) to have fine detail. The vein down the middle of the leaf was done by scratching the wax off in a narrow line. I have some other ideas of how to make designs in the wax. But if the wax crackles, it could overpower the design. Although soy wax doesn't seem to crack too much. I need to play in the basement more.

Tjaps

I was playing with my tjaps today and these are the results. It worked better this time because I didn't use as much wax. Having a felt pad in the pan to use as a stamp pad seemed to work better than just dipping it in a pool of wax. I also did up a padded board, rather than just using some padding under the plastic sheet. Just used an old tshirt on a piece of cardboard covered with plastic. Since the tjaps are used, they are a bit uneven.

The solid red and green ones are silk hankies. It is nice to have small, inexpensive items to practice with. The other times I've tried using them on silk they carried way to much wax and it wicked too much. The color looks a little off because they haven't been steamed yet.



The multicolor is another practice shirt. Previously known as one I would wear while painting. I'm going to give it a try on an actual shirt and see how it turns out. I needed to do some touch up on it so I want to see how well it blocks the wax. It hasn't been dyed yet, so the wax doesn't show very boldly.

Setup

I cropped out the messier part of my work table.

This is the setup I use for melting the wax. The heat source is a 2 burner buffet warmer. You can't boil water on it, but it does a nice job for the wax. Since I use soy wax I don't need to heat it as high as paraffin or beeswax. And the thermostat on this is pretty good.

The small pot is for dipping the shapes into the wax to stamp the wax onto the shirt. The felt in the other near part of the tray works like a stamp pad, it is nice for paintbrushes so I don't get too much wax on my brush and it drips.

You can see I have an assortment of brushes. You have to try a few to see what you like best. I prefer stiffer ones. The softer ones don't work as well for me.

Stencils

You may notice the repeat appearance of the practice shirt underneath this stencil. I just cut out the stencil and wanted to test to see how it would turn out. I plan to recut it since it is a bit uneven. But considering it is only a practice for testing it's good enough. I like the design and think it'll look really nice along a neckline.

Reynolds freezer paper works pretty well. It isn't as durable as a plastic one, but it's a lot cheaper. Especially for practicing, or for designs you aren't sure if you'll like.

Under the tshirt I use a flexible cutting board so the wax doesn't soak through to the other side and leave shadows. Or for something flat like a scarf, to keep the wax off my work table. If it is too small for my board I use a plastic bag.

If you are using enough wax to do the batik design, the shirt should stick to the board a bit. It'll come right off, but it means the wax has soaked all the way through the fabric. You should still check the back for missed spots.

The sticking can also be useful. The stencil in the picture has a lot of detail. If I fill in sections at either end it helps keep the shirt from moving while I work on the rest.

Shapes

I know it is hard to take pictures of plastic, but I tried anyway.

I found these nice stencils on clearance at the local craft store. They're actually intended to be used for embossing paper, but can be used like a normal stencil also.

So the other picture is a waxed design on a shirt using a small portion of the stencil for the scroll shape at the bottom. I think I'm going to repeat the pattern on the back. I like to decorate the back of the shirts also. I think it makes it more interesting. As you can see, it works even better to take pictures of wax on white shirts. It helps to cover the flash a little bit. It keeps it from looking completely white, but isn't too dull either.

Canvas

Another example of when wax doesn't soak all the way through the fabric and the differences between different kinds of fabric. It wasn't a problem since this was a practice piece. But still, you want your project to turn out well.

It's pretty obvious from the back side that I needed to wax the back also. It's kind of interesting how the back of the fabric dyed but the front didn't. Normally, the dye will get a lot more even front and back, but perhaps not so solid on the fabric where I didn't wax well enough. But since this was a heavier canvas fabric it is quite different on both sides.

The splotchiness of the dye is because I didn't stir it much while it sat. Some of it was above the dye bath. And the green marks from a previous practice/test session of trying out painting with thickened dye. I still need to remember to do something with my sodium alginate solution. Last I looked at it, it wasn't too bad.