Batik Printing a Wall Hanging

Batik printing is traditionally made using wax-resisting dyeing technique. The wall hanging you see here is Batik printed. Though the design seems very intricate, it is very simple and does not require any specialization or any special tools and equipment.

Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to Batik print the design shown here on a muslin cloth.

White muslin cloth is best suited for this Batik Project.

• Cut a piece of about 12 inches square muslin cloth.
• Wash it thoroughly to remove the sizing (the stiffening agent in new cloths)
• After complete drying, iron out any wrinkles from the cloth

Here, I have drawn the Batik design in a plain paper and transferred it to the cloth using a carbon paper. You can also directly draw on the cloth using pencil, charcoal or any other drawing material.

Melt wax in a double boiler to the temperature between 75 to 80 ⁰C. Mount the fabric on a frame. Wax in all the outlines on the fabric.

A tool known as tjantling is used by professional workers for this, but, here I have used a coconut leaf stick to wax in all the outlines

Take yellow dye in a container and immerse the waxed fabric in the dye. Remove from the dye-bath and allow it to dry completely. Do not squeeze out the excess dye as it may damage the waxing.

Now the entire fabric is dyed yellow other than the waxed outlines.

Mount the yellow dyed fabric on a frame and use a brush to wax in areas (flower petals) which are to remain yellow.

Take Orange dye in a container and immerse the waxed-in fabric in the dye-bath. Allow it to dry completely.

Now we need to wax-in for the final dyeing.

Mount the fabric in the frame and brush in melted wax in areas which are to remain orange.

Take blue dye in a container and immerse the fabric. Take out the dyed fabric and hang out to dry.

Place the dried fabric between news papers and use a hot iron over the paper. Wax melted by the hot iron will soak through the papers. Change the news papers few times till all the wax from the fabric is melted and absorbed by the papers. 

This is the final outcome of the Batik printing, which is hung on the wall.

Hope I have made this instructable easy to follow. You can try different designs also for the Batik printing following these simple steps.

I have added this step at the bottom to show that I have not used any specialized equipment, tools or materials for this project. 

Materials and tools I have used:

• About a square foot of Muslin cloth
• An A4 sheet of paper for drawing the design
• A carbon paper to transfer the design from the paper to the fabric
• A ball-point pen for transferring the design
• Yellow and Orange-red food colors and fabric whitener for the blue dye-bath
• Recycled wax
• A coconut leaf stick in place of the tjantling and a tender plant stem for brushing in the wax

The aim is to show that anybody can do the Batik printing with whatever material available to them.