My latest crafting adventure is with the artform of Batik. What is Batik? Is that a specialty store that you go to for designer clothes? No! Its a beautiful Indonesian artform used to put some bold and intricate designs in their cloth. The crafter puts a resist of some nature, usually wax, upon the cloth in a design and then applying dye to the cloth. Wherever there is no wax, the cloth will be dyed, but where the cloth is protected will remain the original color. It is a fun and relaxing new craft that has other crafty applications.
Honestly, the approach that I am coming to favor is a bit different. My children are still young and enjoy crayons, which means they enjoy BREAKING crayons! I had pure white delicious cloth and a bunch of broken crayons. There was a small metal paint tray with little divits for the paint in my crafting drawer. Perfect. I broke up each crayon into little pieces and filled several divits. Warming the whole tray in a steamer basket double boiler on my stove. As soon as I achieved liquid wax, dipping a paintbrush in and painting quickly I achieved a beautiful and colorful desgin. They key was to do it in very short strokes so the wax would stay very HOT upon the brush.
I have tried adding pariffin to the crayon for a more diffused color and using just straight clear paraffin resist and dying the cloth too. I plan on picking up some beeswax from a local beekeeper and trying that for a resist.
After the wax cooled, I placed the cloth between newspaper (I keep a roll of newsprint paper purchased cheap from my local newspaper)and cardboard and then used my iron to warm the wax,wicking it onto the newsprint. It took several changes, but finally I had bold colors and beautiful designs and wax-free cloth
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Once the fabric has the wax free, it can be used in a variety of ways. Custom quilting designs, clothing design, framed for artwork, creating pillows or even fabric for slipcovers! This is a completly customized cloth for you to use.