Currently Reading

This week I read a very interesting nonfiction discussion of pretty much everything relating to textiles and a woman’s fashion in a particular place and time.

Kate Strasdin came into possession of a dress diary, a book filled with swatches of the fabrics that made up Anne Sykes, and some of her friends, during the middle of the nineteenth century.

Since her family, and the family of her husband Adam Sykes, were involved in Britain’s textile industry, Anne had access to all the newest cottons, silk from the East, and, later in the century, the newest in the aniline dyes.

Using the fabrics a a springboard, Strasdin references cultural consequences such the enslaved peoples in the United States who picked the cotton that kept the British factories humming.

When Adam Sykes relocates to China, Strasdin discusses silk and, at the same time, the differences in culture, the Opium War, and more.

Colored photographs of the fabric swatches illuminate the text and there is a QR code at the back that brings the reader to more examples.

Fascinating!British History

Dyeing, Batik and Otherwise

The two books I use most to achieve dyed effects or to dye several shades of the same color are Dyeing to Quilt by Joyce Mori and Cynthia Myerberg and Hand-Dyed Fabric Made Easy by Adrienne Buffington. Both of these teach you how to begin the dyeing process with the procion dyes. I especially enjoy dyeing six or eight tints of the same color for a quilt or dyeing white on white fabric. The white pattern doesn’t pick up the dye so you might have a deep orange piece with a white tracery shot through it.

Of course I had to keep moving on. I went into Batik, which is very fun. I use soy wax to make the designs. Traditionally paraffin and/or beeswax are used but I find soy, although it doesn’t easily give that wonderful crackle, is just so much easier to wash out of the fabric. Soy melts easily too. I have had good success painting on designs and using cookie cutters.

Silk scarf, overdyed in blue, pink and green

Cookie cutters are not the traditional tools, however. Tjants (pronounced chants) are long stylus pens with an opening that allow the hot wax to flow onto the fabric in a straight line. I admit I am not very good with these. Some of the people I’ve taught are much better. The traditional tool I love, though,  is the tjaps (pronounced chops). These are copper designs used for stamping the hot wax onto the fabric. Here is my favorite, dragonflies.

 

 

 

 

 

Copper dragonfly tjap.

I obtain all my supplies from Dharma Trading in California. Just a heads up – the tjaps are hard to come by. They do have shipments from time to time but you must order immediately.