Batik Class 101 ~ My New Creation ~ A Puggy Bullwinkle Pillow!

Happy Monday everyone!

I am so excited to show you the Batik Fabric squares Melanie I learned how to make through Boulder Valley Schools ~ Life Long Learning.

Fiber Artist,Lea McComas, spent the day teaching us how to make Batiks with non-toxic, water soluble dyes and resist to avoid all of the mess and wax traditionally used to create them!

We have never made them before and always wanted to ~ so Melanie and I signed up right away and had so much FUN!

I cannot wait to show you what we made!

Ta Da!

Here is Melanie's finished square and pillow!

I LOVE the designs and colors she used!!!

I created this very puggy Bull doodle that I just love!

We sketched some ideas on paper first and this one just appeared.

I immediately knew this was the one I wanted to paint and transferred the image to my cotton fabric square.

The next step was to squeeze on the Gutta resist to all the areas that I wanted to stay white.

After the Gutta resist dried, all we had to do was paint in the areas with our water soluble dyes.

When I got home, I threw my square in the washer set on cold with a mild detergent and washed out the Gutta.

Unlike wax, the Gutta is easy to work with, mess free and completely washes out so the fabric is soft again instead of being left stiff by the wax residue.

After it came out of the dryer, I hand-colored in the black eyes with a sharpie marker. :)

I decided I wanted to turn my square into a pillow so I pulled out a pillow sham that I had in my linen closet just waiting for the perfect project to use it for!

I ironed my Batik and then pinned and machine sewed it to the front of the sham.

Then to finish it ...

I hand-sewed an orange pom pom trim border around the edges to hide any crooked edges. :)

Ta Da!

I just love how it turned out!

Melanie and I are going to make squares together at our sister's Art Retreat weekend we have planned in June!

We have them all drawn out and ready to paint with our dyes!

I cannot wait for us to spend the whole weekend together in the mountains making lots of FUN things!

Of course, I will show you everything we create!

What FUN things do you have planned this Summer?

Please leave us a note and let us know!

We cannot wait to hear all about them!

xoxox

Melissa & R-Chee