Batiking

Today's postcard

Today I finally got started on my batiking lessons, just when everyone else is finishing. It took me awhile to get all the supplies together and think it all through. And at the end of the day, I had one lesson finished and parts of the other three as well.

Here's my new little fry pan with soy wax. I fooled around for awhile thinking I could locate a used pan at Goodwill or at a yard sale since it won't be used for anything except wax but finally gave up on that. I used soy wax, even though it wasn't suggested, and I'm glad I did - it was very clean and behaved well. In the picture it hasn't melted yet, it's little wax shavings

I knew that once I got going I'd be hooked, and I am. It's very time intensive, but I love the process. I'm eager to start some projects of my own and really put some care into them. The top two pieces below are just pieces I twisted and put into the dye once the main pieces were almost done. I knew that most of the color would already by gone, but I just can't resist getting a little extra cool fabric.

Getting the wax out was easier than I expected, but the little blue piece didn't really have a whole lot to start. We'll see what happens with some of the more heavily waxed pieces.

The little blue piece was a sampler to get used to getting the wax on the fabric.

The red will have two more wax and dye processes and hopefully it will end up with red and purple birds on a brown background.

The flowers were waxed first, then painted on the fabric. We'll see tomorrow what they look like. I forgot to add the soda ash and salt on the first two colors, and I'm not sure what will happen. Maybe I'll just paint over them tomorrow, that would probably be the best thing.