Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum

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