Hi from BC (canada) :)

[Sevda]

I have been intrigued with dying process ever since I saw a pair of pants that were painted and dyed. I fell in love and want to duplicate them. Not exactly....but to use a similiar technique to come up with my own designs. Are there any suggestions? I will post a link to the page they are on. http://phoenixrisingartists.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=41 I am thinking that they were started with white fabric and then in the end dyed black.
Opinions?
Thank you very much!

[tiedyejudy]

Hi!  I read the description on the top, and it said they are done using batik, which is the use of wax to resist the dye.  There are many books available describing the batik process.  I have only attempted it once many years ago.  It's a bit beyond my abilities, I'm afraid, but others here may be able to give you some tips.  One observation I might make is these appear to be mass-produced.  I gather the artist creates the designs then has them batiked, probably overseas.  Just a guess...
Best of luck!

Judy

[ecilA]

Hi Sevda, welcome to the forum. Those pants are pretty neat looking!

[Sevda]

Thanks!

They sure are neat looking. There are girls going absolutely nuts about them, so I want to create something like them. Do you think white is where you start though, then the last is black? What I am trying to figure out though, is how do you keep the black from going to rest. Do you wax each color , each time you add a new color? How hard is it to get the wax out?

[ecilA]

this probably won't answer your questions but I will theorize on those pants.

I think they start with white, the white in some of the designs indicates this to me.

I think they batik the fabric and then make the pants and I think they are using a very soft wax because I don't see the crackle lines generally found in batiked goods.  The colors are achieved by layering from lightest to darkest with wax added with these layers, but honestly the depth of the solid colors has me a little flumoxed.  Edited to add though if it is indeed dyed/batiked on the fabric this isn't really a mystery, color can be applied specifically to the segments and your biggest issue is having the dark colors affect the lighter ones you have protected with added wax.

The best way to remove the wax is to have is processed by a drycleaner.

[Sevda]

That's kind of what I was thinking. Your theories I mean.  The drycleaner could get very expensive thoiugh if I try to make and sell these. 

[pburch]

The dry cleaners around here use a process that removes none of the wax at all.

Paula

[ecilA]

there are other ways to remove the wax but the dry cleaner is the safest for you and will probably do a more thorough job than trying to remove it in water and ironing it out is probably the most dangerous as the fumes from the wax can be a problem.  And I can tell you from experience that other methods do leave a residue that may be slight but is noticeable (at least it has been for me).

I'd guess, in light of Paula's post that you would want to make sure your dry cleaner did use chemicals that remove wax but I have heard from several reputable batik artists that the dry cleaner is the way to go.  Before you discount it for reasons of cost, find out if they can do it and how much.  I can't imagine you'd sell those pants for "cheap", so include the wax removal in your pricing structure to make sure that it is an affordable process.

[pburch]

After paying good money to a dry cleaner to not remove any of the wax from my batiks, I paid a different dry cleaner $5 per item to hand-steam the wax out.  (I never did that again.) He assured me that he, too, had no chemical that could remove wax from fabric. The chemicals that remove wax well are quite toxic and bad for the environment. In theory you can use white gas to do it yourself, but I wouldn't. It's not worth the risk.

Now I find I have no wax residue left if I boil the wax out, but this requires that the water completely cover the garment with plenty of room to spare, and that I let the wax cool completely and solidify while the shirt is still in the water below it. Removing a garment through the layer of melted wax leaves a residue in the fabric, of course. I like to use liquid castile soap (not detergent) to help with the wax removal.

Ironing out wax between layers of paper produces potentially hazardous paraffin fumes, unless you use pure beeswax (no crackle).

Paula

[ecilA]

something I don't know, Paula, maybe you have an answer to this one.

Can cotton/lycra be boiled?  I know cotton can but I'd worry about damage to the lycra.

[pburch]

No, you're right, Lycra should not be boiled. It's a thermoelastic polyurethane, and very heat-sensitive. It should not be steamed or ironed, either.

You don't actually have to boil the fabric to get batik wax out. I find that all of the wax floats off at well below boiling temperature. This requires a very large, two- to four-gallon pot so that the fabric can move freely in the hot water below the surface where the wax ends up. If the volume of the water is not high enough, the fabric sticks up into the wax layer and never gets clean of it. However, the 145°F temperature at which beeswax and paraffin melt is a lot higher than the 105°F usually recommended as the maximum temperature for washing Lycra. I still haven't used up the synthetic microcrystalline wax, a substitute for natural beeswax, that I bought several years ago, but I will not be buying it again because its melting temperature is higher than that of the natural stuff.

I would not even try batik on Lycra blends. You could do it, since your dry cleaners will remove wax, but I can't since ours will not.

Paula

[Sevda]

Well that's thouroughly depressing. Since that is what I will be using...cotton/lycra. I guess i will have to figure something out. I actually did try something else though. How do I post a picture?

[pburch]

You can post a picture to the Tie-dye Gallery or a free web image host service such as Photobucket or Flickr, then include it here by typing in img and /img enclosed in square brackets. There's an 'insert image' icon in the posting editor to help.

To solve your problem, maybe you can find a local dry-cleaner who does remove wax, After all, Alice's does. Call aound and ask. Or maybe you could try an alternative resist, such as soy wax. I don't know how hot you have to get soy wax to melt it out; you can buy it in the candle-making supplies section of a craft store. You should paint dye on, instead of immersing soy wax or any alternative resist-treated fabric in a dyebath as for traditional batik. There are other resists which will not "crackle" like wax, such as Presist or Jacquard Clear Waterbased Resist, and which also must not be immersed in a dyebath. Elmer's Blue School Gel works surprisingly well as a resist, if you let it dry well before dyeing.

Paula

[Sevda]

I read that about the glue somewhere, actually on the other dye forum I think. I haven't tried it yet, but I did buy some. 

[Sevda]

Ok, yay, I was able to upload a picture of my attempt! Opinions and or helpful suggestions would be greatly appreaciated.