The original intent of the road trip was to go see my bestie for some wedding planning and fun, but we wound up doing much more than that! My friend and her mom own and run an awesome fabric/upholstery shop (www.bargainbarnfabrics ) and in addition to fabric sales they do custom upholstery, drapes, pillows, etc, AND they also hold classes several weekends a month with all different kinds of topics...I arrived in Virginia just in time to go to this weeks class, a batik class!
Batik is a kind of dyeing process that involves using wax to prevent dye from soaking into the fabric, and leaves a distinct 'crackle' finish as the wax lets little bits of dye soak into the fabric. I was super excited I got into town in time, it was a way fun class!! And I totally played enjoyed taking photos as much I enjoyed doing the dye project, I think my overall design probably suffered for it, but that's so ok! I wound up with great pics!
This thing (I forget what it's called, but it's awesome!) is designed specifically for making batik prints, and my friend's mom found it at an antique store for a steal since the antique dealer didn't know what it was! It was used on the sample under it, in addition to other utensils like paint brushes and a metal comb! I love the vibrant colors my bestie used on her sample, but I had more mellow intentions for my piece =)
So many choices!! I wanted all cool dye colors (blues and purples and such), but ones that wouldn't just blend together, and I found a good mix of pale and bright =)
The metal block in action, you can see here it's been dunked into the wax, and then it's pressed onto the fabric to create the pattern (or what will be the reverse of the pattern, as it were, since where the wax goes will not have color)
That's my bestie there helping out with the wax, and that gorgeousness to the right is her work-in-progress...Insane jealous...She has as much talent in her pinky as I have in my whole body, and not to sound conceited, but that's saying something, I've got quite a bit of craft/sewing talent!
We had a small class, which made it super fun for all of us, I think the other students' works turned out gorgeous as well:
The purples on this one are gonna look so pretty! And I also think it's awesome how she did the wax on the orange flower and the blue boxes, it's going to be awesome once the wax comes off! She made sure the dye got really well into the wax, so the cracks and creases are going to be really well defined!
And this... I love on so many levels! As a photographer, I love the angle and the wax and dye trays around the piece... But as for the batik, this seriously looks like a Van Gogh painting, it's going to be awesome when it's finished! 
And here's my lovely free-form design =D As I said before, I was more worried about getting good pics, so then it was time to put wax to fabric and I was clueless as to what design I wanted! So I separated the panel into 4 sections and did something different on each! =) I think it'll make a neat little effect, I liked the fabric we were using as a base, and thought the pale pink would look really nice against the dye colors I chose. I rather like how mine turned out, even though it clearly pales in comparison to my bestie's (or the other people's in the class lol, they did an excellent job too!!) 
My detail shot, I layered the darkest dye color with the lightest two, I'm really excited to see what it will look like once it's finished! 
That is way awesome!!!
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