It’s been a while since I posted on here, but it’s for a good reason. I recently finished my school exams and it feels good to level up a bit education wise. One of my favorite courses was textile design. I was able to try out 3 different techniques of decorating fabric!
The First technique - Bleaching
- I started by getting a black fabric of about a yard ready as well as my bleaching agent. What the bleach does is to basically reveal the original color of the fabric.
- For my design I made use of one of my surface Patterns as a reference. It wasn’t easy drawing all the lines I tell you. But the end result was worth it!
The Second Technique - Batik
For this method, I made use of a yard of a white cotton fabric.
Batik in essence is using wax to resist dye. This method produces such beautiful designs.I made use of a foam stamp on which I cut out my design. I started by wetting the fabric, the next thing I did was to dye the lighter color (orange) first. To achieve this, I tied both ends of the fabric. I dipped both ends in dye, whilst leaving the middle of the fabric white.
The next stage was stamping my design with the use of the foam and melted wax. I certainly got burned by the wax a few times.
Lastly, I dipped the middle of the fabric in a navy blue dye solution. I left it to oxidize ( letting air interact with the fabric which allows for a better pigment of the dye on the fabric) . After this was de-waxing (dipping the fabric in hot water to remove the wax). I really loved the result of this process.
The Third Technique - Tie & Dye
This was certainly my favorite. This time it was 3 yards of cotton fabric. I got frustrated many times due to the complexities of trying to fold the fabric. I used a triangular folding method to achieve my design.
To give it a different look, on both ends of the fabric, I used circular tying in 5-6 places.
Next was dying the fabric. One might say I have a bias towards orange and blue, but I don’t mind lol.
As always I dyed the lighter color first which was orange. I achieved this by pouring the dye onto the fabric, rather than dipping the fabric into the dye. I did the same process for the navy blue dye
One thing I love about this fabric, is how different it looks on the various part of the fabric. I particularly liked the circular tying at the bottom!
Close ups!
Thank you for Viewing!
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