Designing my own…

This morning we loaded up the our van with six sisters (Gordon was nice to drive us and take pictures) and drove to Ester’s home to learn how to batik. Ester is a recent convert to the Church. Over the last few years many missionaries have gone to her fabric shop which is not far from where we live. One of her sons had become a member. She teaches these batik classes when she can. She lives about 13 miles from where we live. We were on highway, then paved roads then dirt roads to get there. This whole process is in the backyard of her house. The little house in the second picture is where the sponges with the designs are, and the tables where we stamped our cloth. The black bucket is one of the die vats.

The water is hauled from the well in front of her house to these two tubs. When Ester mixes the dies, she scoops water from the blue tubs into the black tub. You just tell her what color you want, and she doesn’t measure, just scoops powdered die into cold water. The sacks of die are in the little lean-to.

The designs are against the wall and in piles on the floor. Here are the sisters that were in the group.

First you choose designs. Then you lay the cloth (cotton) on a table and you dip the foam design into hot wax.

Below on the right are the designs I chose. Whatever was stamped first stays white. Then into a blue die vat. Gratefully her helpers did all the hard work of dipping and wringing out.

Then out on the grass to dry. Colors lighten. That is Ester mixing a color. And you see the first layer finished.

Then back to put on another layer of design. If the wax is not shaken out of the foam enough, or if you push to hard, the design comes out like a blob. You can see a monkey on the ground through the window. Closer pictures at the end of the blog.

Then into the second color, purple, and then back on the grass to dry again. The yellow and purple long strips are material the workers were working on. The second picture shows a strip that looks black with a little yellow. When dry it is one of the bright yellow strips above my head in the last picture. The stack of sticks are fuel for the fires.

One last time to fill in the gaps with last design. And a final color, darker blue.

After drying, into boiling water to remove the wax. They put them out to dry a little and did a second time in the hot water, and then into cold. Then back to dry a last time. The smaller sticks you see are used for fuel, and also for handling the hot process.

This is actually all in her back yard. Primitive fires, vats, tools. BTW, this is the first time in 10 months I’ve had blue jeans on! What a treat for me.

The finished products, so different. None of us knew what we were doing. I will go again when I get the chance.

The boy helping with the hot wax has this monkey. Usually the monkey runs free, but with us there he is tethered. That’s my hand he’s jumping for! Gordon was more brave to let him grab food from his hand.

In the picture below you see Ester’s daughter-in-law starting a design on yards and yards of cotton. Next time I am at her shop, I’ll take a picture of some of her designs. They are beautiful!

And last, here’s my good buddy, who was very sweet to take pictures with everyone’s cameras for them during the three hours we were there. He was so willing to come. But I know he hates being cooped up in the apartment for very long, so he enjoyed being out in the heat and humidity with us. The adventure continues!