Name: Sherree
Message: I saw your photo of the batiked hammer-head shark.  I believe that I am wanting to batik some t-shirts similar to that - with a fish and sand dollar on them.  However, I have never batiked anything before, nor have I tie-dyed anything before.  Do you paint the melted wax onto the fabric before the pre-soak, after the pre-soak, or after the tie-dye?  I would think that you would want to do it before the tie-dye, since the fabric will not be white enough to leave the impression after the tie-dye.  Is that correct?  How do you get the colors that are sprinkled into the shark?  Is that from the wax cracking during the dyeing process?  You can see that I have a lot of questions.  I really hope this is one of the emails that you answer.  Thanks a lot.

I think it's a bit simpler than you're imagining. I'll describe my whole process so that you can see. Note that you shouldn't apply melted wax to any fabric that is not bone-dry, as even a tiny bit of moisture can keep the wax from sticking properly. I always paint the wax onto prewashed, dry, clean 100% cotton or rayon fabric. If you're using t-shirts, be sure you don't get the type that is stain-resistant, because the anti-stain finish on the fabric will repel the dye.

To start, I drew my designs on the shirts with an ordinary pencil, and then applied hot (probably 230°F) batik wax with a tjanting. The batik wax I used was 15% microcrystalline wax and 85% paraffin (I will be using real beeswax instead of the microcrystalline wax in the future, for a slightly lower melting point). After I was done drawing on the wax, I let it cool until the wax was solid and hard, and then I crumpled the waxed fabric to make more "crackle" lines, such as you saw on my shark t-shirt; these are caused by cracks in the wax. Later, when it was convenient, I mixed up my dye mixtures and put them in plasic squirt bottles, and put soda ash and water into a bucket for the presoak. I presoaked the waxed shirt in the soda ash water for about ten minutes, then took it out and let most of the soda ash drip out of it. I lay it out flat on a grid-top table, and squirted on several different colors of dye. A day later, I rinsed the dye from the shirt very thoroughly in cool water, then I immersed it in a three-gallon pot of boiling water with liquid soap (not detergent) until the wax floated to the top, then allowed the whole pot to cool until the wax layer was solid and could be removed, leaving the shirt in the water underneath.

The kind of dyeing I did is not, strictly speaking, tie-dyeing, since I did not tie the shirt. Everything else was exactly as in tie-dyeing, however, including good Procion MX type dye, and soda ash. You can order a tie-dye kit, as long as it contains this kind of dye, not all-purpose dye. Do not try to use the Rit tie-dye kit, as it contains only hot water dyes. To work with wax, you must use cool water dyes. You can use a tie-dye kit made by Jacquard, or Tulip, or Dritz, or Dylon, if you find any of these. Or, you can mail-order everything you need from any of the dye companies listed on my page of dye suppliers around the world. You'll need Procion MX dyes, soda ash, urea (optional), plastic squeeze bottles, a dust mask, beeswax and paraffin, and disposable gloves. I like to use a cheap thermostatically-controlled electric frying pan to melt my wax, as a double boiler does not get hot enough, and melting wax directly on the stove is dangerous.

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