Since I'm doing a peace project and today is Earth Day my first shirt is going to be a batik and tie dye combo with a peace sign on it. I already applied the wax and dropped it into the procyon dye bath. I can see that the shirt is now Lapiz blue but I can also see the waxed part is still hot pink. Last time I tried something with wax I forgot the dye bath had to be tepid not boiling and all the wax melted off. So I have confidence that the wax didn't melt this time.
Putting wax on fabric can be tricky. I found a heat gun very useful in melting any wax that hardened too fast. I don't have any fancy batik tools so I'm just doing the best I can with what I have.
In 20 minutes I will add soda ash to the dye bath. Updates to follow.
Update: I took an educated guess that if I used the blue dye over the hot pink shirt, I'd get a lovely purple, and after everything was rinsed out that indeed was what I had. I've very pleased with it, but have opted to give it one last good rinse, and then wait until tomorrow to iron the wax out. I can't wait to see what the end results will be.
The t-shirt with the wax on it before dyeing.
The lapiz dye premixed in a glass jar.
They dye bucket is yellow so it's hard to tell the dye is blue.
The bright spots are the pink areas still covered with wax.
Taking the rubber bands off the tie dyed portions.
Back view.
I haven't ironed the wax off yet, but here you can see
basically what it will look like.
Update 2:
I spent about 30 minutes this morning ironing the wax out of my t-shirt onto some brown paper. Then I gave it a run through the washing machine. Right now it's in the dryer. Looks great!
