Ever feel like a three-year old insisting he can put on his own socks? That was how our Batik class went. Oh, don't get me wrong - we enjoyed chatting with our instructor and her sister and daughter about family life and batik and how she got into it and 
all that, but both she and her bossy sister were perfectionists and therefore didn't really want us to make the mistakes that come with learning. Let's just say the demonstration phase of the lesson covered a lot of fabric.Batik is like
tie-dye in that it is a process of preventing the dye from reaching certain parts of the fabric. With tie-dye it is rather random and circular depending on
how and how tightly you tie the fabric. With Batik, you prevent the dye from reaching the fabric by using wax which soaks through the fabric and then hardens, sealing the fabric from the dye.
The wax is applied with wood or dense sponge rubber stamps and looks easy, but is not. Leslie and I used stamps that were already available, but Pam really wanted an elephant so we had to draw one, stencil it onto sponge rubber, and cut it out. After that, the stamp is dipped into the melted wax, shaken to remove the excess and prevent drips, and pressed onto the fabric. Press too hard and you get a blob. Too lightly and you get nothing. 
Eventually, we all stamped our patterns onto our fabric (once our instructor relinquished the stamps to us), and then the fabric was dyed. After dying, the fabric was laid out on the grass. The color in the dye bath is very
different from the end result as the dye changes color when exposed to air. Leslie wanted green and looking at the dye bath I would have been certain she ended up with blue, but after a short time spread out after the dying, it was green sure enough.Then the fabric is rinsed to set the color before being dipped in boiling water to remove the wax. We took them proudly back to our hotel where we hung them on the clothesline to dry with the hotel sheets and towels. Mine is being made into a wrap around skirt as I write this.
Oh, and we shared some of our culture, too. Leslie sang a song about chicken soup. Not to spoil it for you, but the chicken dies in the end.
XO
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