Everything has been so crazy lately, add in school starting for my three grandsons, that our Kerchief Challenge has been pushed to the background.
My daughters and I have had this challenge set back at around the 4th of July where we each took a white kerchief (too small for a scarf, too big for a hankie) and we were all going to do something creative with our piece of cloth and see how they turned out. I sent one to my sister in Portland so she could participate, too. Although she’s very talented and it was just asking for a sibling smack down.
Our deadline: Labor Day, also known as today.
Ages ago, when I bought the Fiber Reactive Dyes, I had a grand batik project in mind. It was one of those ‘jump in at the deep end’ ideas and way over my skill set and it never happened. But I figured, as long as I was getting out the dyes, I should get out the batik supplies, too. Because “Why do one project when you can do three? is my personal motto.
One way to do batik is to apply the wax with a tjanting and, really, I’d had this in mind since I got my kerchief. I’d been practicing!
To use a tjanting, you dip it in wax and draw, right? It would have been clever to actually read some directions.
Because it was nearly the Labor Day deadline, I just started making some freehand designs on the corners of the kerchief. And I was pretty excited about how it might turn out. But I noticed that the wax was really sitting on top of the fabric. So I had the idea to slightly warm the wax so it would settle in a little. And I miscalculated.
After boiling out the wax and drying the scarf to start over, the whole process turned out totally different. The wax rushed out of the tjanting, and it was hard to control. I suspect a batik expert would know why this happened. And since I’d washed the sizing out of the fabric (which I should have done at the beginning) the blobs of wax settled right in.
I drew it, I dyed it, I got it done, but it wasn’t pretty. And trust me, my sister’s was beautiful as she had done actual shibori…and followed directions.
Between the kerchief and the pillow, it’s left me feeling a little defeated.
Maybe I need to make another cushion, a batik pillow with the lovely green dye, just to rise to the challenge.
Luckily my daughter and her partner came over for dinner and brought some yummy food, including to-go cocktails!
Dinner and great conversation takes the sting out of defeat.