Originally Posted by
pinkCastleDH
Joe - it's a dye pattern/technique. Originally it was made using wax to limit the fabric exposed to the dye (or at least how much dye can affect treated portions of the fabric.) Most that you find these days are actually printed to look like a real batik.
I used to do batik on silk - a friend of mine and I made scarves/wall hangings (1988) we stretched the silk on a frame. Then we had a tool to put the bees wax in and used it to 'draw' designs on the silk or we just painted the wax on the silk. Then we dyed the fabric some light color. Then we used the wax to cover the light color where we wanted to keep the color. Then we dyed the fabric again - we kept going until we used black. Kind of expensive but a whole lot of fun - we had little kids and that was a challenge. The kids loved to play in the wax... I should see if I can find the tool again some time. We tried all different kinds of things. Somewhere I ran across one - we played with an old sheet to see what it would do before we did it on silk - never did take
all the wax out of it - didn't like it... Some stuff plays out and some not so much. One day my friend's dad who was a professional artist came over and made the most beautiful scarf for her mom. He made a comment I will never forget. He said, "Who needs talent, you can get expert at just about anything if you practice long enough." HHMM So many of us quit just short of getting good.