Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum
Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum
Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum
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owl of molten wax kept warm in a brazier. Although the heat-retaining<br />
copper blades help keep the wax in its molten form, the wax<br />
still hardens quickly if one is not fast enough with drawing on the<br />
fabric. Too much wax gathered<br />
on the blade in a dipping could<br />
produce blobs or a line thicker<br />
than desired. Insufficient wax in<br />
a single dipping, on the other<br />
hand, would produce a disjointed<br />
line. Drawing a design with even<br />
and flowing lines, therefore, is not<br />
easy to achieve. Furthermore, an<br />
understanding of the ambient temperature<br />
of molten wax is equally<br />
difficult to acquire. Overheated<br />
wax tends to spread out into the<br />
fabric's fibres when it is applied<br />
and causes fussy edges in the<br />
designs after dyeing. Underheated<br />
wax hardens on the tip of the<br />
fibres and cannot prevent dye<br />
from entering the fibres. In fact,<br />
during the wax-drawing process<br />
any hesitation or lapse in concentration would also produce unsatisfactory<br />
results.<br />
Dyeing entails first soaking the fabric with waxed patterns<br />
in warm water. It is then taken out to drip, be smoothed out, and<br />
slipped into an indigo dye bath for 20 to 30 minutes. This is followed<br />
<strong>by</strong> airing to induce oxidation. Repeated dyeing and airing will eventually<br />
produce the desired shade of blue. However, in order to make<br />
sure the colour is fast, the fabric must receive one or two coats of<br />
diluted soya bean juice prior to each of the last few rounds of dyeing<br />
and airing. When dyeing is complete, the fabric must be soaked in<br />
cold water to remove superfluous dye matters. Afterwards it is deposited<br />
in boiling water to remove the wax. Molten wax is scooped out<br />
to be reused later. As a final step the fabric still needs another round<br />
of thorough cleaning <strong>by</strong> boiling it in soapy water for half an hour and<br />
soaking it in clean water overnight.9<br />
The different ethnic groups also use other materials for resistdyeing<br />
besides beeswax. These include maple resin, pine resin,<br />
and paraffin wax. Different dye-resist substances produce different<br />
visual effects in dyed fabrics. Beeswax, for example, being more<br />
fluid in molten form, enables<br />
fine and smooth lines to be<br />
made. Paraffin wax, on the<br />
other hand, being more brittle,<br />
cracks easily when the waxed<br />
fabric is manipulated during the<br />
dyeing process, creating more<br />
crackle in the end-product.<br />
Among dyestuffs indigo<br />
is best suited to wax-dyeing,<br />
because it can be kept in normal<br />
or slightly warm temperatures<br />
without wax dissolving<br />
into it. Although most waxresist<br />
patterned fabrics are in<br />
blue and white, a few other<br />
colours can be added to the simple palette. Red and yellow vegetable<br />
dyes, for instance, are often painted on selected details to brighten<br />
up the subdued colour scheme either after the wax in the dyed fabric<br />
has been removed or before the fabric is immersed in indigo.10 In the<br />
latter case, the hand-painted coloured areas must be covered with<br />
wax before dyeing takes place. Other ways to enliven the basic blueand-white<br />
scheme frequently employed are multicolour embroidery<br />
and applique work.<br />
27