Hot Wax, Vats of Dye, and Many Small Children

I hope that someday my children fondly recall "Remember that crazy time Mama decided to  . . . " as opposed to just thinking I was boring or just plain nuts.

Anyway.  Last week, my brother and his family were visiting and my newest niece wore this cute onsie that said "My Midwives Love Me" and had a cute little design on the bum.  It was super cute and my sis-in-law commented that her midwife had "batiked" it.  Of course, this intriged me and I decided that I had to try my hand at it.

So I ordered supplies from Dharma Trading Company, got a stack of tshirts from Goodwill, and convinced my sister to join me!

It was a little messy and took some time to get the hang of it (ok, maybe I never actually got the hang of it), but it was really fun and pretty easy!  My lack of artistic ability showed, but somehow the free form mess I made looked ok in the end.

The basic concept of batik is to draw on the fabric in wax and then dye the fabric.  The wax acts as a resist so that where there is wax, there is no dye.  Once the wax is removed, the design shows through.

For some reason, some of my colors turned out a little funky after I washed them.  It was interesting that despite the fact that we only used two dye colors, all of the shirts came out completely different.

Most of them turned out cute, some (mine!) were a bit ugly, but overall it was a fun project.  And the kids were great!  No one got scalded with hot wax and no one spilled dye all over the house -- success!