Name: Laura

Message: Hi,

I have never batiked before and have come up with a school (30 students) class project that sounds easy but I can not find instructions or anyone who has done it...I want to have each student do their own batik of a carved halloween pumpkin. Advice me if I am off base:

Cut each child apprx. square muslin cloth. Have each child color on paper their 3 colored vision. white, orange, (purple or black to be determined). Have kids first wax in white colors on muslin, dye orange, have kids was in orange color, dye either black or purple...dye black, iron or some other way get wax out...as we are mass producing...does this seem like it should be simple...each kid would have created their own pumpkin...fat, skinny, short tall, some eyes will be white, some black some backgrounds black, some white...some have white or orange decoration in background, etc....

Does it sound like it "should" be easy? or I am trying for too much as I am not a crafty person at all but I thought it would make an awesome long term decoration for families home...what do you think...please add any and all suggestion!

I have to say that I am terrified at the idea of children playing with 230°F melted wax. There's too much risk of permanent serious injury. There are substitutes you can use instead of wax, however. See "Immersion Dyeing with a Soluble Resist", for a very suitable example.

You can do the overdying business just as you describe, but don't try to do purple over orange. Dye is transparent, so purple added on top of orange is not going to be purple OR orange. Black on top of orange will work fine.

Do not use a hot-water dye, such as the all-purpose dyes sold under the brand names Rit, Tintex, or Deka. Instead, use a good cool water reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye. You can buy this dye by mail-order from any of the companies listed on my Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World page, such as Amazon or Dick Blick. Or, you may be able to find Dylon Permanent Dye at your local fabric store, which is a good fiber reactive dye with the fixative already mixed in; if so, you will need to mix up a fresh packet of dye powder for each class period you use it in. Make sure that your muslin cloth is 100% cotton and not treated with any permanent-press or stain-resistant coating. Buy soda ash along with your dye, to use as a dye fixative.

Instead of wax, I recommend that you use some sort of water-soluble wax substitute or gutta substitute. You could use fabric paint (or, even better, glow-in-the-dark fabric paint!); if it is applied thickly enough, it will repel the dye. You could use any of the various products sold as "water soluble gutta", which are substitutes for the solvent-dissolved rubber of real gutta. Or, you could use Elmer's Washable Blue School Gel glue. (Do NOT use white glue!) The glue works well as a resist, and has an added advantage in that it is sold in a handy dispenser bottle.

When using Elmer's Washable Blue School Gel glue, let it dry completely before painting on the dye; use a hair dryer if necessary to get it dry quickly enough. The glue must be applied heavily enough to soak right through to the back of the fabric, a little. The dye must also be totally dry on the fabric before adding the next layer of resist, regardless of what you use as a resist, even wax. The glue will get sticky when immersed in dye and can transfer to another piece of fabric, or, if the fabric is folded or crumpled, onto another region of the same piece of fabric. Immersion can still be done, with care, or you can gently apply your dye like paint. You can dissolve all of your dye at one time (it will stay good for a week or two, or longer if refrigerated), but you will want to separate out the amount of dye you are painting with, each class period, and add the soda ash fixative to the dye just before use. Each batch of dye will go bad within an hour after the soda ash is added, so timing is very important. 

If you use a paintbrush to apply dye to fabric that has been presoaked in soda ash, as in the standard tie-dyeing recipe, the brush will carry enough soda ash from the fabric to the dye jar to cause it to start to react right in the jar, which will mean that it will go bad after an hour or so, so be sure, if you do this, to pour out just enough dye for each use, so your dye stock solution will stay good for the whole project. As long as you pour out just enough dye to use, this is a fine way to do it. For children of this age, I think it would be best for you to apply the dye, instead of the children; since you'll be using a cool water dye, you can mix it up in an immersion dye bath in a large plastic bucket.

The dye will be lighter at the end of the project, after it dries and you wash out the unattached excess dye, so be sure that everyone applies their dye to be very dark.

When the time comes to wash out the glue and the excess dye, follow the instructions on the glue bottle: presoak for at least ten minutes in cool water before washing. You can wash out all the pictures in one load of laundry. Wash once in cool water and then at least twice in very hot water.


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