Fabricollage

Pianola Roll - embroidery and automaton

2011-08-01T13:40:00.000+01:00

I have finally completed my first Pianola Roll project, having bought these from the World of Mechanical Music Museum.

I took as my starting position the fact that the holes in the paper were information points, and so took those and used them to make a cross-stitch embroidery. I also copied some of the printed information on the roll as it would have been visually dull though intellectually rigorous to have just used one set of data to make an accurate copy into another medium.

In order to make an object which would hang well I used bondaweb to stick a backing fabric onto the cross stitch. I used part of an old sail I had available, which is a good material to use at it cuts easily, is strong, and doesn't fray. I then used bondaweb to stick the embroidery onto the original pianola roll, having cut off almost all the paper but kept the section which attached it to the bobbin.

I haven't sorted out the display method yet, but this piece can either be hung from from a cord attached to the edges of the bobbin, or set on a surface using the original box to hold it in place.

a second, complete, pianola roll

I haven't made much progress on the automaton idea. I have played with the kit I bought, and I do understand much more of what would be needed to make a hand that moved when a handle was turned.

I made the basic hand by sticking the pianola paper onto artist's canvas and then using knotted wool to allow the joints to move.

the fingers move - a little

canvas backing on paper

I have also played with a small windup 'gramaphone' music box I bought, and a little doll, but haven't managed to work out how to make a piece where turning one handle makes it look as if the doll is winding the gramophone.

wind-up gramophone from Ebay

my 95pence doll from the charity shop

An additional problem is that the gramophone works by winding the handle a little and it then plays for quite a while, with the handle rotating in the opposite direction as it does so. I had assumed it would be like those little metal music boxes you can get where the music only works as long as you turn the handle.

I doubt I will have these pieces done in time for the exhibition but I am not giving up yet! In the mean time I need to get on and work on the 'Love Tokens' project I started ages ago, based on the archives at the Coram Foundling Hospital.

Resolutions

2011-07-05T14:29:00.000+01:00

Another catch-up postcard

Georgia falling and the ginger pig

2011-07-04T12:08:00.002+01:00

Following on from the entertainments of the summer residency at Blue Ginger, I have made two embroidered postcards. The sewing machine was a bit stroppy, but manged to complete both without tearing my hair out.

I had hoped to catch up on all the missed postcards before the September Exhibition. However, the topics from last year aren't on the Facebook list any more...but there was a title of 'something beginning with F'. While I was looking for a photo for the 'Stitch in Time' topic, I came across a photo of my granddaughter as a baby, caught in the act of falling (she was at that stage where sitting up is a great effort - but the floor is very close), with her hair flying out like thistledown. So, Falling (Georgia) is my submission for this topic.

When we are the Blue Ginger Summer House artist's residency there was a hole in the grass that two of us got caught out by. On the Thursday I put a squeaky toy in the hole, to mark where it was and act as warning.

Of course, no-one could resist standing on it and making it squeal. As it contributed so much entertainment I thought an embroidery of a pig would be appropriate.

Pianola roll - opportunity and threat

2011-06-17T10:56:00.001+01:00

donkey sand-automata - it did have a keyboard

I went to the World of Mechanical Music in Northleach, a village in the Cotswolds. This is a completely amazing little place full of the most astonishing mechanical music machines. A tour involves being played ( and sometimes playing yourself) music on pretty well every form of machine for playing music that works by winding or pedaling. My highlight was being played a direct paper recording by Rachmaninoff - sitting watching the keys of the piano move it felt like the man was sitting there playing with invisible and very large hands just for me.

This little museum is also a workshop for repairs, I think the back room probably has gnomes...probably a direct time-vortex link to the North Pole. They also sell old unwanted pianola rolls for one pound each. I came away with a handful, and gave them to my embroidery group in lieu of Christmas cards. Since then, each month when we meet, we find out if anyone has started a work making use of the pianola roll, each time we ruefully shake our heads.

front edge of roll - attaches to winding mechanism

I intended to make an automaton of a piano player with the paper from my pianola roll. Anyone who has seen any of my stitchery will know precision is not my strong point, but I love automata and had always wanted to make some. I bought two paper automata kits so that I could learn how they worked. One had a donkey that played a keyboard, operated by sand falling through a hopper. I made it, rather roughly, but by now I have lost a few of the bits. The second one is a set of fingers that move as you wind the handle. I had all sorts of plans but as the exhibition date looms I am reducing the scale of my aspirations.

Yesterday I finally unrolled my pianola roll and discovered it was about three times the length of my house! After a bit of agonising I cut a section of paper out of the middle to have something to work with, to get the feel of how the paper works, can it take stitch, how does it fold. I also tamped talcum powder through the holes with a cotton-wool pad onto dark soft paper, considering it's use as a stencil.

very very long!

Pianola rolls have holes that provide information. These holes determine which keys are played. In effect they are no different than a knitting pattern or a computer programme. I looked at the holes, the added lines of colour whose purpose I don't know, and decided to start with a direct copy using cross stitch. I have a piece of cream even-weave, some threads, and a piece of work that I can work on easily, a bit every day.

pianola roll detail

The rolls come in neat cardboard boxes with supports for the ends of the rolls. These are beautiful in themselves. The ends of the rolls area a variety of materials, but the Bakelite ones are, again, lovely things in their own right. any aspect or part of these rolls could be the starting point for the work.

I was at Malvern Theatre last night, and noticed that they hang long banners from poles in their high ceiling. Immediately I could see a piece of work with nine long embroidered and manipulated pieces of the piano roll. Will I be brave enough to suggest this? I'll work more on my roll - then perhaps after our September show in Ledbury suggest it to the group.

This is such a long (both in time and physicality) piece of work that I am going to use this blog as a sketchbook to describe the processes I go through, rather than waiting to write about a finished piece. I am hoping this will help me clarify my ideas and remember what I have planned to do.

A summer postcard

2011-06-11T16:25:00.000+01:00

A group of friends from my C&G course still meet monthly. We make a small postcard sized piece on a theme each month just to keep those of us less good at motivating ourselves working. I have to admit that, even with such a small piece and a deadline, I have still been poor at doing these.

However, next week we meet, and this month the theme is summer. I have planned several different pieces in my head, but they got no further. One of the group does a truly inspiring mini-sketchbook for each them. We all sigh and say we must do the same and never do. So, all these thoughts don't even make it to paper.

Yesterday I was hunting on the computer for a particular photo and came across one I took in Scarborough a few summers ago. They have some lovely beach huts and two women had set up a table with bright cloth and a vase of flowers and were enjoying their tea in the sunshine. I asked if I could take their picture, thinking it would a lovely source of information.

So, this little postcard is based on that idyllic hot summer moment.

I started by drawing the picture with felt pens. I find drawing a scene helps me be sure of the spatial arrangement and points of interest. I then found a scrap of artist canvas, found a new sewing machine needle (that took a hunt) and a wash-out fabric marking pen. I was going to just do free drawing with the machine but it is so long since I have done any embroidery with the machine that I drew the rough sketch first. I then stitched with black thread, washed the cloth and left it to dry.

I gave away vast amounts of fabric recently due to an impending house move, so have fewer pieces of cloth to chose from. I thought the table cloth, vase and flower, and the beach hut doors should be fabric snippets, and the rest left as stitch. Fortunately the stack of fabric and sundries I was going to take to College is still here, and it includes a lot of ties I painted for Rod. It occurred to me that if I just kept those I would have access to a lot of different colours in small amount, so this will be my source for small bits of cloth.

I added a bit of colour for some of the doors, the table cloth and the flower. I did make an error on the blue and red door but I didn't spot that until I had sewed it up (they should be shorter) and I decided not to unpick the envelope to restitch it. The reverse has a note from these two ladies to a friend - done as always too hastily.

Alison Dupernex - textile artist/craftperson

2010-11-28T03:47:00.000Z

Alison Dupernex is currently showing at the Innov8 Craft Fair in Pershore. She gave a talk to the local artis's group WANA yesterday.

http://www.alisondupernex.co.uk

Alison gave a lively talk about the origin, development and techniques for knitting her silk and cashmere cardigans and scarves.

She described herself as ‘Painting with yarn’, and said that she was

passionate about colours...they absolutely bounce off each other.... your life gets richer because of what you discover...touching and feeling the fabric nourishes your soul...makes you feel fantastic.

Many artists have influenced her in the twenty five years she has been a professional knitter. She designs in January and February, closing the workroom door and experimenting. During the rest of the year she doesn’t have time to develop ideas, but she does alter her colour choices all the time as she goes along. She always makes her colour choices in daylight. She finds that black and white, which she only started using recently, give space to other colours and allow them to breath. Sometimes she uses colours which you are unlikely to notice in a composition but if they weren’t there you would notice that they weren’t there...somehow they make the garment zing.

Alison trained as an English teacher. In the eighties she had fifteen knitters working for her, and sold in stores around the world such as Liberty's. Knitting and knitted garments then became unfashionable, and it was only a chance discovery of some Italian silk yarn that transformed her work into its current fluid, flexible form. Garments are square cut but draping, gaining their shape from the people who wear them. The light airy stripes of knitted silk are interspersed with slightly felted cashmere to give an intricate and sumptuous texture.

all I want....

2010-11-24T13:01:00.000Z

The Wednesday Group, my pals from the machine embroidery City & Guild's course at Malvern, are making a postcard sized work each month, This month the topic is 'Christmas'.

It is a lovely frosty day outside, and a good day to start a new project.

I haven't sewn anything much for ages and so I wanted an easy project to start with. I began with needing to find a long extension lead, as the whole electrical circuit in the room I sew in have stopped working. We suspect that mice have chewed through a cable but we haven't yet figured out where.

I decided to take the 'All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth' song as my inspiration. I considered which materials to use for each layer, but decided to try felt as I had sufficient and its lack of fraying was attractive.

I got together materials, then tried to thread my sewing machine. After a few goes I triumphantly got the needle threaded, only to realise that I had threaded the bobbin thread through the eye of the needle. Hey Ho...

I wrote the postcard to Santa saying what I wanted. I had decided not to make any 'cutesy' spelling errors but spelled 'Dear' wrong without meaning to. I had put out a note from a then six year old friend of mine to get the feeling of the writing, and it obviously worked.

I stitched ribbon to red felt for the wrapping, organised so that undoing the bow allowed access to the inside of the present.

The inside is lined with violet/blue velvet. Sewn onto the velvet are two incisors, complete with root. I made them out of white and flesh coloured ribbon. I would have liked to make teeth that were more beautifully crafted, especially after seeing Annie's exquisite apples with pips last week, but couldn't manage that. I think they do, at least, look like teeth enough for the story to work. I had hoped they would seem like jewels set in a box.

So, not great, and I had to relearn things like changing machine feet and tensions and threads...but at least it is done.

long time no stitch

2010-11-24T09:21:00.000Z

I've been preoccupied with trying to set up and run a gluten-free bakery business. I haven't done anything else except learn about food hygiene, legislation, packaging, and baking baking baking as I test recipes for quality, keeping and transportation.

I have decided it is time I got back to a more balance life and managed to make it to the monthly 'Wednesday Group', the people I originally went to machine embroidery classes with at Malvern. They, sorry, we, are making a postcard sized piece each month, and this month I am going to join in. The topic is Christmas, and I have planned my piece. Today I will make it. I'll post the process and pics as they emerge.

begin again

2010-11-18T07:29:00.005Z

After months of not doing any embroidery I finally managed to make it to the Wednesday Group meeting - the original gang I met at my first City & Guilds class two years ago. They have been making a small postcard sized work each month, with next one being Christmas. The themes each time have been simple, but they are still producing very different work in response to the title - I look forward especially to February's, which in a fit of lack of inspiration became 'the letter F'.

So, got to clear the workspace and begin again. I'll check the earlier blogs and make sure I finished posting about the work I did for the C&G level 3 and the exhibition. I decided my life had become lopsided and I needed to do something other than cook.

Carnival

2010-02-17T19:15:00.002Z

Carnival

Lots of colour and laughter – but also lost children, picked- pockets, swindled customers and tummy aches and hangovers.

My carnival piece looks at the traditional fortune-teller. You see the woman with a long skirt and bandana looking at the hand of the client, who is holding a crystal ball. She is seated at a crimson clothed table inside a tent. Attached to her ear is a phone wire that leads to the other side of the picture. Here there are two men is striped shirts and grey trousers, sitting at a bank of computers. They are using the data coming through from the crystal ball, which is a fingerprint reader, to access information about banking, health risks etc to enable the fortune teller to give accurate information about current events and so seem to be able to tell the future.

This piece is made from fabric and found objects. 80cm x 47cm

Gollum’s Pocket Part 2

2010-02-05T10:03:00.003Z

Many other jobs need doing but Gollum’s Pocket tops the list for amusement. I painted an old crepe bandage with silk paints and stitched the vari-coloured strip onto a coffee bag. I wanted the outside to look weedy and as if it had been in and out of slimy ponds. Because Gollum kept his ‘Precious’ the inside needed to be bright and shiny and something that would keep the contents tidy even if they were bits of fish. I didn’t make a closure because Gollum, after all, did loose The Ring from his pocket, so it is now empty. I wondered about fitting a small LED light, preferably solar powered, inside but that seems a bit too hard and have given upon that notion.

I sewed a few beads to represent water droplets and small water creatures onto the bag, and then stitched the fish skeleton on the outside. I made a head and tail from some scraps of shiny cloth and sewed on a glassy bead for an eye. I used a shoelace to make a strap so Gollum could sling the pocket over his shoulder or tie it around his waste. He has a newish looking shoelace, but I suppose he would regularly need to change the lace as the old ones wore out and he came across discarded shoelaces on the edges of ponds.

This was a silly project and I had a lot of fun doing it.

2010-02-03T19:09:00.009Z

Gollum’s Pocket

I have decided to make a piece for a collaborative project with Charnwood Arts' Big Knitting Group, Every Pocket Tells A Story. This will be an exhibition at Loughborough's Charnwood Museum, which will explore the history and the future of the pocket. (http://www.charnwoodarts.com)

I thought about my pocket...all the things I would carry if I had pockets like Mary Poppins’ magic bag. A standard exercise on creative writing courses is to think about what the characters carry with them in their pockets or bags, as it is supposed to help you understand them and what they would do in different circumstances. I always carry a compass attached to my bag; very handy when popping up out of a tube station on a gloomy day so that I don’t stride confidently off in the wrong direction.

I decided to make Gollum’s pocket, the sad, slimy forlorn creature from the Lord of the Rings. The outside will be dull grey and green muddy colours, but the inside will be bright and shiny and full of treasures. The pockets have to be no bigger than A6, and not have anything but writing inside which tells their story. I’ll attach the treasures so that they are spilling out and visible.

The most obvious treasures are the gold ring and a fish head attached to a skeleton. I have some shiny gold sweet wrappers, so a ring is easy. The fish is a bit more of a challenge. I was wondering about making the skeleton from toothpicks, or laminating a drawing, but Rod suggested fraying cloth. This seemed like the best idea. Whilst making this I also noticed that curtain hooks have a certain fish skeleton look about them so maybe another time I’ll use them.

I used a bit of artist’s canvas and cut out a fish shape. I then frayed the two sides, and pasted glue to the whole thing. I used some PVA diluted with water which I had left over from another project months ago. Anyone know why PVA and water left in an airtight jar smells completely disgusting? I decided to use it anyways – I don’t suppose the aroma will last, but if a slight stench assailed the nostrils when approaching the pocket that would be very appropriate if a bit surprising.

I’ll make the head and tail from some shiny silver trousers I bought a couple of decades ago which for some reason I don’t wear anymore. A bead for the eye and that should made a great half eaten fish.

Plinther Pigeon

2009-07-09T07:12:00.005+01:00

I've got a place on the Trafalgar Square Plinth end of August. They've given me a prime time slot on a Saturday afternoon so I figure I should do something other than just sit there looking vaguely queasy.

I think it would be amusing to dress up as a pigeon and sit on the plinth. My plan so far is to make a large but light pigeon costume and then attach a small action man/barbie type doll to my cycle helmet, thereby reversing the pattern of the other plinth residents.

I'll chart the progress of this pigeon suit on this blog. This morning I ordered some hoola hoops to form the structure of the suit. It would have been nice to get all four sizes of readily available hoops and do a graduated shape, but that seemed a bit extravagant. I have ordered some small and medium hoops (45 and 75 cm). I decided 75cm was wide enough after a few minutes with a tape measure and a little wriggling - that should make me look quite large without stopping me sitting down.

I have some fabric that looks like chicken wire but is light and floppy. I'll sew the hoops to that so that I make a large crinoline structure that hangs from my shoulders rather than my waist. I can then sew a variety of feathers to this - anyone wanting to send me a feather from an A4 size bit of cloth please do so. The feathers need to be light but don't need to have any structure as the undercarriage will provide all the shape needed. They need to be able to cope with rain in case it is pouring down. I also want the suit to be ok if it is scorching hot, so the open structure of the mesh fabric will be useful.

I'll photograph progress as it happens....

well, best intentions to chart progress have fallen by the wayside as other more exciting things fill my time. It is now post-plinth day. I made my pigeon suit, and I mounted a model of Anthony Gormley's Iron Man statue on a cycle helmet and covered the helmet with Grey cloth. I stitched on eyes and mounted a beak, and at the last minute also attached a dragonfly I had made from knitted fine silver wire and machine embroidered vanishing fabric - just a whim, and only because I had to take down a craft exhibition on the Wednesday before the Saturday sitting.

When I tested the costume by sitting on a garden table and getting Rod to photograph me i thought I looked a lot like statues of the mature Queen Victoria, so I decided I needed an orb and scepter equivalent. This was an egg and a stick, of course. I made the egg by blowing up a balloon, tieing string around to give a basic non-slip structure and a handle, and then papier machieing it with strips of newspaper and pva glue. I didn't use pulp as that is yucky and a friend said she tried that and the stuff all fell off. It worked well, and I painted it with acrylic glue to make it a brownish colour.

We allowed extra time for the drive down in case there were traffic jams, but apart from a slowish bit as we passed Oxford, with a queue in the exit lane, the journey was great. Arriving, therefore, far too early, we had lunch in an Italian cafe and then caught a taxi to Trafalgar Square. The taxi-driver said I was his first plinther. He talked about several of the people he had seen do things, so it is clear that as the taxi's swirl around the roads they do notice what is going on on the plinth.

At the One&Other office I had to show my passport and driving licence to prove with a photo id and an address that I was who I was supposed to be. I had my bags searched. I had already been told I couldn't take on fire, glass or fire-arms, but was a bit surprised when reluctance or at least hesitation was shown over my stick that I was going to clutch. They didn't want anything that might fall through the net and hurt someone. I was then interviewed and photographed, first in my normal clothes (not that normal as I was wearing my amazing Physalis earrings by Nora Fok) and then in my costume. The interview was taped for the oral history project the Welcome Trust is running. I was asked all sorts of questions, not just about the plinth project. The only thing that flummoxed me was when I was asked for my view on art.

I was shown the cherry picker used to transport people to and from the plinth. They are lovely big green and yellow machines, gleaming and serviced every two days by the JCB staff. I then had a microphone put on me - I was surprised by this, thought in retrospect that was surprising in itself. I suppose I had thought the mics were built into the cameras. I hadn't intended to do anything but sit quietly, but once I was mic'ed (how on earth is that word spelt, everything looks odd) up I ran a commentary, and burbled on about anything that came into my head. If you watch the coverage you can see that the camera operator is paying attention, as the camera swivels to take in the topic of conversation.

Once up on the plinth everything seemed very peaceful. The square bustled with people, there were breakdancers in front of the national gallery, deckchairs full of people enjoying the sun, and general milling. I had worried that I would feel vertiginous, which is why I had planned a stationary activity, but I didn't notice that at all. The safety net probably stopped any of that - I thought it might not as it is horizontal below the level of the plinth, but it is very visible.

I had been warned that the guides in the open topped buses might shout out to me and I was just to ignore them. Only once called out, very politely, to ask if I was a pigeon, so I called back that I was. There are several trees between the road and the plinth where the buses paused, and I could see people craning to see properly.

Rod wandered around in the square below to tell people what I was doing if they seemed interested. He pointed out that I got a great cheer when I went up and when I left, which was lovely. One person has put a picture up on the&Other website through Flikr saying they didn't know what I represented and that I just sat there the whole time. I know some people would be bored by the way I just sat there, rather than doing some performance that engaged the passers by. If you watch the SkyTv show they really only like the ones that do a lot. However, Anthony Gormley himself said he was happy with the people that just used their time to sit there quietly, so I reckon that is ok. After all, the other plinth occupants in the square don't move at all.

Overall I would say it was a highly amusing event to participate in and I have no regrets about joining in. I wish I had realised my costume was caught on the stool so I didn't look like a proper round pigeon, and I wish I'd used some pins to stop the fabric blowing up ( quite and updraft on the plinth). It would also have been better to have spoken more clearly/had the mic in a different position, as the background noise in the square is very load, with the fountain, the sirens and the general traffic and people noise. We both had fun and Rod enjoyed being support staff for a change.

Further adventures in batik

2009-06-28T12:58:00.001+01:00

So I know all about batik now, having done one small thing. I decided to test out a pattern from the book, and chose a sunflower design for a cotton shopping bag ( from this year's Hay Festival. They kindly left one side blank). A mixture of a cut-open plastic folder and a cornflakes box protected the already decorated side, and I set to. The pattern has lots of wax this / dye that steps. I used the new Procion dyes but didn't bother doing any measuring. No idea if the colours will be permanent. The pattern didn't call for any crumpling of the wax, so I didn't. I expect it said to do that between each step in the intro, but I didn't remember. If you don't crumple the wax you end up being able to see how badly you wield the paint brush or how unimaginative the pattern is rather than being amazed at how interesting batiked fabric can be.

Having done that it was time to start despoiling my clothes. I had tried a ready mixed liquid 'easy batik' on a long skirt, which hadn't really worked, so I put some more wax on the skirt, roughly followed the instructions for mixing the dye, and put the skirt in. I don't use salt in cooking so had to use the dishwasher salt, which comes in large granules. I thought it was smart to mix the dye and salt with hot water to speed up the dissolving of the salt. It wasn't until I was swishing the skirt around in the hot water ( yes, I remembered the gloves) that it occurred to me that dunking a newly waxed skirt in HOT water was a bit dumb. I'll have to wait and see if any of the wax did resist the dye or weather I just made wax and dye soup.

I just knew it. I cant have a dye bath sitting around going off. At least I restricted myself to one tie-dye t-shirt. At least with the temperature being 35degrees C in the shade things are drying fast.

The tie-die shirt is great. The skirt has less contrast than I would have liked. I wore my shoulder out ironing the wax out onto newspaper. I later discovered the very cheap iron I bought to be my craft iron just doesn't get very hot. It wont, for example, get hot enough even on top setting, to transfer a printed image from the paper to the cloth (special paper for computer prints) whereas my proper iron worked fine.

I think with batik the wax removal would probably be the limiting factor. I did some more work on the skirt and then boiled the skirt to see how that worked. It was ok but clearing up was a bit of a pain. Trick is to use the batik wax carefully in a small area and then iron using a hot iron. Don't use it as an all over technique on a large item.

I've since then got the grandchildren to do tie-dye t-shirts which worked very well. I think I'll leave batik for times when I want to concentrate and achieve a really special effect.

learning how to do batik

2009-06-27T10:43:00.000+01:00

Batik for complete beginners

I had a book on how to do batik, Start to Batik by Rosi Robinson. It had lovely pictures and clear instructions, but everything felt a bit complex for a first experiment. Also, I bought a starter batik kit from Rainbow Silks. It came with Procion dyes, as used in the book, wax, fixative and an applicator. It also came with instructions about how to mix the dyes but nothing on how to manage the wax. I assumed the instructions had been left out by mistake, but it turns out the pack was as complete as it was supposed to be.

I did what I usually do; hunted around the internet. You can batik with hardly any kit. You can batik with a wax candle dribbled onto cloth if that is all you have. I set out to make something just so I understood the process.

There are several basic things that need to be done.

§ Your fabric needs to be washed if it is new as the factory dressings can stop the dye working.

§ suspend your cloth so it isn’t touching the table.

§ melt the wax to the appropriate state.

§ Paint the wax on, let it cool, crumple the fabric if you want those distinctive batik marks

§ Dye the fabric and let it dry.

You don’t need any new equipment to successfully make your first batik piece. I used masking tape to stretch my piece of cloth over the box a meringue had come in (it has a big open circle at the front so that you can see the meringue, so I stretched the cloth over the circle). It was handy, and it held the fabric up off the table. It also meant I could look at the back of the cloth to check that the wax had soaked in properly. A baking tin would work. You need to be able to take the fabric off and on several times so do something that is simple. I reused the same bit of masking tape for the whole process. I do have a proper frame for painting silk, but it is quite large, and I wanted to use stuff anyone might be likely to have in their kitchen.

I melted a small amount of wax in a foil food container by setting that in a pan with a little water in the bottom. I would have used a tin can as the higher sides would have made it easier to make sure the water didn’t splash into the wax, and also allowed me to have more water in the bottom of the pan so I wouldn’t have to worry about it drying out, but the recycling had just been collected so I didn’t have any. I thought eating a tin of soup just to make batik seemed a bit excessive.

Don’t wander off while you have the wax melting. If the phone rings turn the stove off before you go to answer it. If it catches fire do not pour water on. Use a chemical fire extinguisher, or use a fire blanket, sand or flour to smother it or baking soda (which produces Carbon dioxide which is why cakes rise).

You want the wax to be melted enough that it soaks into the fabric, but not so hot it smokes or catches fire. You can tell if the wax is hot enough by brushing a bit onto the cloth. If it is too cool it just sits on the surface of the cloth and looks white. If it soaks in it makes the fabric transparent and you can see the wet look of the wax when you look at the reverse side of the cloth. If the wax hasn’t soaked through the dye will creep along the fibres to that bit of cloth rather than stopping at the wax edge. You can apply more hot wax on the under surface if you need to. Don’t just put more wax on top of wax that has cooled on the top surface; you’ll just end up with a ridge of wax that isn’t doing anything.

I used a paintbrush to apply the wax, rather than the tjanting (metal wax dispenser) that came with my kit. I know how to use a paintbrush, and decided to keep to the equipment most people would have available, and leave learning how to use this dispenser for another occasion. I painted very simple patterns, a fish, star etc, without making any attempt to make the pattern look good. I wanted to find out what the batik did, rather than demonstrate any style or skill in the design.

Once the wax was cool I took the cloth off, lightly crumpled it, put it back on the frame and painted it. I used the silk paints I already had. I was bothered by the idea that I had to mix the Procion dyes in the kit and then use them immediately. Procion dyes do contain some hazardous materials and should be mixed using a face mask. They are supposed to be safe to dispose of down the drain, but I am not on mains drainage so don’t like to put anything I am unsure of down the drain. Also I was worried about making up enough dye to dip the fabric. If I did that I would have dye left over and I might be tempted to dye other things and pretty soon everything in the house might be dyed bizarre colours. Sticking to little pots of paint-on dye would allow me to find out about batiking without any of these problems.

Between each layer of wax and paint I removed the fabric from the frame and lightly crumpled it to crack the wax.

I painted a first layer of yellow. Then I had to wait. The book on batik makes it seem as if you can get on and do batik as a continuous process, but a lot of it requires waiting while the dyes dry. I then put some more wax on the cloth, waited for it to cool and painted green on. Then I waited for it to dry. Then I painted another layer of wax and used purple.

You now end up with a piece of fabric covered in paint and wax. I was using fabric paints that set when ironed, and the wax needed to be removed by ironing. I place the batik fabric between layers of newspaper and ironed. I bought a new iron for the purpose – it was about £3.50 from a supermarket value range. This ensured I wouldn’t ruin my usual iron. Iron the cloth through the newspaper and keep changing the newspaper as the wax moves from the cloth onto the paper. I used up two and a half free papers in the process.

My final project did not have a soft handle and drape as the silk paints I used do make the fabric a bit stiff. If I was going to make a skirt or other garment I would need to use a different dye. I could use the Procion dyes I already bought, or I found that you can buy liquid dyes for batik off the internet. To remove any remaining wax, which a friend said was a problem with her one and only batik piece, you can get the fabric dry-cleaned. However, I am not sure modern dry-cleaning is effective and whether dry-cleaning firms will be prepared to do this: the older solvents removed the wax but the new ones wont. Ask you drycleaner beforehand I haven’t explored this issue yet. You can also remove the wax by boiling the item in lots of water with liquid soap – again I haven’t tried this yet.

At the end of this I got a piece of cloth that I really liked! Considering how basic the pattern was, and how crude the three colours were, the end product has charm and interest far greater than I would have got if I had just painted a pattern without using the batik wax. It is not so much the areas of resisted paint that produce the interest, but the way the dye creeps in along the cracks in the wax so you get every possible combination of colours. Now that I have done this I will definitely set out to do a more complex project with confidence.