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.

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.

Another try

Some more practicing with a tjap. This try is better, not such huge wax globs. I have a small cookie sheet - like the size for a toaster oven - that I'm using to hold the wax. Then a piece of craft felt that is folded double fills half of it. The felt works like an ink pad. It lets me get a smaller amount of wax because I'm not dipping the tjap in the wax so far. Trying to shake off the extra wax doesn't work so well for me, I don't want to fling wax all over my basement.

For the next try, I'll figure out a way to have a slightly padded surface for the fabric. I think the tjap is slightly uneven. Most tjaps available had been used for many years. Or at least the ones with prices I'm willing to pay.

I still need to play with making some shapes myself. I got a piece of sheet metal at the hardware store. It should be a nice thickness to use.

Some things work better than others

Well, I got a larger pan so I could use my Tjaps. When I heated them in the wax some stuff came off. It looked like rust. But since they are made of copper, I didn't figure that was it. But then I realized that it would still have some residue of wax on it. So that must be what was coming off. Some of the videos I looked at showing how they are used, the wax looks rather brown. They may add resin to the wax mix also. Oh well.

But the batik using the cookie cutters works well. There is a huge variety of ones you can get. The picture today is one where I'm partway through doing a shirt with some flowers and butterflies. It is being dyed now. I think it'll be cute.
A scarf I dyed today I'm not sure of. It isn't my choice of colors. But I'm trying to do colors that aren't only what I like.

oooh, pretty

I got my order from Dharma Trading. I got 3 Tjaps (I believe it pronounced like chop). They are used for batik to apply wax to fabric to block the dye. You'll get undyed ares that way. Think of a rubber stamp, how it applies a pattern to paper. But this is the reverse. It keeps dye from the fabric.

I put a couple pictures up so you could see how they're put together. They are made from strips of copper and have a handle on the back. Dharma has more info on how they're made.

You let the Tjap sit in the container for a bit to heat up. Otherwise the wax just wants to stick to it and not move to the fabric. Or it cools off the wax too much so it won't soak into the fabric. The wax just sits on top and doesn't block the dye.

I'll have show you my attempts to use them later. It didn't occur to me that the pan I use to melt wax wasn't big enough to put these in. I use a 9" pie tin I got at the thrift store. But of course, that is how big it is at the outside edge. You can't put something that is 9" in it. The one on the left is 8" long, the largest one is 9.5" at its widest point. I figure a cheapo aluminum pan will work.
Here are a few videos about batik. The bottom one shows a person using a Tjap. Her site has a lot of good info on dyeing. Well written and easy to understand.

Dharma Trading has several videos showing how to use the various tools. I've been quite happy with Dharma Trading and the product I've gotten from them.

Copper Tjaps

Well, I splurged. Dharma Trading got in some copper Tjaps in. Compare to rubber stamps for ink - but are used for wax for batik. It's another way to get wax on your fabric. So I managed to get a couple. There are other places on the web to get them, but the price is good and I trust Dharma since I've ordered from them before. They are really clear on what you are getting and how to use it. If you do much dyeing, fabric painting, etc., you should check them out. They even have a sense of humor.

So when they come in I'll post of a pic of them. And of course I'll have to practice using them. So far my batik has been using paint brushes or cookie cutters. Did you know cookie cutters work pretty well to do batik? That is what I use for the stars on the t-shirt below. I got a few different sizes and sets. I'm going to try with an alphabet set also. You should see my test t-shirts, they are quite 'decorated'. Of course, they also have a lot of paint samples on them since, when I'm painting a room, I think wiping my fingers on my t-shirt is easier than getting a paper towel.