juliasb

I just put 3 yards of white muslin in the washer to get ready for hand dying. then I will wait until our quilt guild meets to bring it in for dying as a guild project. I have dyed fabrics before and am thinking it may be time to do some more. About 50 years ago (while in high school) I did a small piece of batik. I remember the process and have plenty of stamps I can use for the basic patterns. What I don't remember is the fabric that was used for this process. Has anyone ever hand dyed their own batiks? What was the base fabric that is used. I think it would be fun to try at least once in this lifetime. Dose anyone have any hints on creating your own batiks?

ckcowl

I generally use 200 thread count bleached muslin for my Batiks. It is a fun activity. I have used other quilting cottons too, they have all turned out great

Kitsie

I looked up Batik Tutorial on Google. quite a bit of info. Hope it helps you!

cindi

I suggest you go to the Dharma Trading Company or Pro Chemical website. They have many articles on how to dye different fabrics.

juliasb

I just did a search of some of the different techniques that are now available for doing batiks. One thing I discovered is using Elmer's Glue instead of paraffin wax for my designs. That could make the process much easier than having to pull the wax out at the end of the dying process. Has anyone tried this? Other techniques of using wax and brushing on your dye I have used. Back in the day we carved a potato and made a stamp to dip the wax into. That worked great too. However I have a great number of rubber stamps that would work great with the rubber stamps to make areas I want left undyed. Starting with a lighter dye and using a heavier brush to do darker coloring would be a great way to go at it. I will use the 200 count bleached muslin I have here . Thanks for the advise. I look forward to other ideas to get my brain around this project.

Iceblossom

I have done various techniques with dying fabrics including batiks -- which for me is a wax process, but I like the idea of the glue! It's been about 20+ years since I did much with dyes or bleach processes. I used to do tie-dye in the microwave, that might be a good step in-between colors or it might be bad news!

First time I ever did anything was when I was a Campfire Girl, call it third grade in the 1960s. Our leader did a lot of fabric crafts and therefore we did too My son enjoyed doing the tie dye with me around grades 1-3.

I liked working with screens and shapes whether those be leaves or whatever, you can layer things easily.

One batik I bought had a flecked design made of grains of rice left to dry/resist the dye. Thought that was a cool idea.

I've done some dying with natural dyes I made, basic stuff like onion skins and whatever. I prefer to use commercial products for the most part. Just yesterday hubby was showing me some fabric dyed with mushrooms, colors I would not have expected!

juliasb

I would never have thought about using a mushroom for a natural dye. That sounds very interesting.

Peckish

You might look into PFD fabric. PFD means prepared for dying. Some more info:

https://www.dharmatrading.com/html/e...64805-AA.shtml