Every now and then "stuff happens" but if you are on top of your game, you can fix it! This is a moderately large run on a custom color. I am confident that this mix of dye colors will be close to what she wants.
Into the dye bath it goes. It was a 6 hour recipe and came out very close to what we want but a bit too much on the blue side. I will over dye it with a touch more red so that it is more on the eggplant side. Have to set it aside to try the next project. I will over dye the yardage this morning and only allow it to cure for about 1 hour more. Stay tuned for the results.
My batik students at Quilt University have tried their hands at using the Indonesian printing tools called "Tjaps". I have one and have never used it because I thought it would be too hard; get messed up and never again look as clean and beautiful as it does now; and that it would be too hard. Did I mention that already?
Here is a picture of it, face down, heating in the hot pan of wax.
The first stamp was SO EASY! Look at how beautifully it stamped! The wax is still hot and shiny as you can see. Next- let's see how it registers...
Woah. So easy. I'm having fun with this! It registers well and with only a few shakes over the wax pot, it holds the heat superbly and hardly drips at all.
On about the sixth print, I got a crummy stamp from not pressing well enough.
Easy to fix with some brush work.
Here's how it looked when dyed!
I tried the technique some of my current students are using for the final wax removal that involves simply pouring the boiling water over the ironed out piece to melt the remaining wax. Cool. You guys amaze me. I will be including this technique in the lessons to come as an option.
Dye on and dye hard.
