Batiking. This has been one of those projects that's
been more than year in the making.
I'm not sure why these projects sometimes take so long
to begin. Is there an incubation period?
I've had the dyes for over a year, and more than once
I've mentioned the project to my lady's art group,
and then I've bailed at the last minute.
I'm not sure what about this project kept me from
diving in. Really it's just wax, dye, and fabric.
What is there to be intimidating? Oh right,
there's the wax, the dye, and the fabric.
I even had a good book, several actually, to explain
the process. What finally got me going was that a
good friend sent me a lovely batiking stamp.
So. Between a growing pile of salvaged tools
(a vintage electric skillet, old stock pots, improvised
stamps) and collected supplies (dye, 3 kinds of fabrics,
2 kinds of wax, sundry chemicals, buckets, and general
hoopla), I was ready to jump in.
And to make sure I didn't get cold feet, I told my
ladies art group that we'd be doing it. Really doing it.
Which of course meant I HAD to do it.
I had Auntie O come and help me with the dry run,
which was fortunate, because it turned out that there
was something to this whole batiking thing after all.
It is quite addictive.
Very Addictive.
As in you can swoop through 6 yards of fabric, and
still want to do more. Oh, there is a learning curve,
but it is the type of curve that leaves lovely piles of
material in its wake.
The stamping and the wax is so fun, and playing with
the layers of color is intoxicating, and the possibilities
are endless. It turns out that the most difficult part
of batiking is beginning... and then stopping...
unless you run out of fabric (which I did).