Batik dyeing with tea candle wax...

Lachafa started to dye her dress (or several now? ^^) with batik dyeing. Just making hte knots at the right place... I think you all know it and have done it once! Her dress looks really cool and cute... and it's batik is back in the fashion at the moment.

The other option for batik dying than using knots is to use wax. You drop the wax on the fabric, dye the fabric afterwards and then remove the wax by ironing it between absorptive paper (like old newspaper for example)... you can do this layer after layer... add one colour, put more patterns with wax on it... and do it as often as you like. Whether you remove all the wax at the end or at some time points in between depends on your desired colour combination.

I just lightened some tea candles in some candle holder. After all the wax was melted I hold the tea candle in one hand with a slight angle and used a brush to get the wax on the fabric.

Okay, my first atempt was just to pour it over the fabric. Bad idea, really bad idea! The melted wax just goes like water into all your fabric. Grmpf. As a second atempt I put a paper pattern on the fabric and tried this again and failed again. Hu...

But using a brush is great. Although you have to work fast you don't need to panic. Even if the wax is not really fluid anymore it goes and holds to the fibers of the fabric.

I think another really cool combination would be to use freezer paper and a brush to get the wax at the right places.

I will try! As soon as I have new candles...

And as for your choice of fabric: Take a thin type of fabric / natural fibers... if it is too thick (yes, I tried it ^^) the wax may not get through the fabric and therefore not blocking it from the paint.

And please, be careful! Fire, hot wax... may be a bad combination!