Thursday, August 13, 2009

Soy Wax Fabrics

A few weeks ago I had another go at soy wax (1st foray was in Janet's workshop). This time though I decided to play with layers.

I had some dye left over from a recent dye day and needed to use them up. After soaking the PDF in soda ash and letting it dry I stamped my first layer of soy wax with a foam leaf stamp and painted the fabric with chartreuse dye.


After 2 more layers of soy wax and dye painting I ended up with the dark green layer at right.

The last thing I wanted to do was to create a crackle effect. I did this by painting the whole piece of fabric with soy wax, letting it set up, scrunched the whole thing into a ball (see below),

then painted with Havana Brown dye and left it to dry.


I like the effect the crackle produced and will definitely try that process again.


The extra crackling you see was due to not believing the dye would reach the fabric under the thick layer of soy wax and scrunching the fabric a second time. Still, a great piece that I definitely will be using soon.

Here are 2 more fabrics from that soy wax layers session....




~ K. Grace Howes

3 comments:

  1. I'm about to make my first foray into soy wax batik, and was intrigued to see that you'd used foam stamps. The foam held up in the hot wax? This certainly widens the options!

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