Hi I'm Susie and I'm standing here in the kitchen of the Fort George clubhouse which is
the visitor center for Kingsley Plantation. It is a kitchen much like any other with a stove
and a sink and well in our case two refrigerators. Now you may remember me from our previous
uh festival the virtual harvest day when I did a demonstration on how indigo was produced.
Well today I'm going to show you a technique that you can do in your own home this is wax resist
and wax resist fabrics were very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries and I will do a simple
version of it that that you can try out yourself. So let's get started you'll need white cotton
fabric, beeswax, vinegar a dye like turmeric, mask to cover your face so you don't inhale the powder
old pans, old utensils, ones you won't use to prepare food again paper pencil and a paintbrush,
and if you have it some craft paper to cover your surface an apron and gloves
A tablespoon of powdered turmeric will be enough to dye a handkerchief sized piece of cloth
a rich orangey yellow add a quarter cup of vinegar to that powder mix the two into a paste
and then add enough water to cover your cloth about two or three cups
We've reached the design phase it helps to draw a cartoon of what you want your project to look like
in my case i love polka dots so I drew polka dots
in an offset pattern of threes and twos and then drew a line on either side of those dots.
Fill a pot with water and then place the container with your wax
over it in my case an old plastic food container the water doesn't need to be
boiling it just needs to be hot enough to melt the wax the wax will be clear when it's ready.
Once your wax is ready carefully take it to your paper covered work surface and
place it on a potholder dab the wax onto the fabric along the lines that you drew
then flip the fabric over and apply wax along the same lines
and dots in my case put your fabric in an embroidery hoop if you have one
that way your fabric won't stick to the paper when you go to wax the other side which happened to me.
Another method is to crumple up your cloth and dip all of it into the wax then let the wax
harden and crumple it up again this will make a kind of neat crinkly pattern for a final product.
Place your wax covered fabric into your die pot and push down to completely submerge the cloth
swish it around a little to make sure the dye gets all of the fabric put on your gloves first
unless you want yellow fingernails for the next few days... like me.
Let the fabric rest in the dye solution overnight
then the next day remove the cloth from the dye pot and give it a good rinse then let it dry.
The easiest way to remove the wax is to get out your iron grab some craft paper and place
it on your ironing board lay your fabric on the paper then layer more paper on top of the fabric,
put your iron on a low setting and use it to melt the wax off of the cloth,
the melting wax will stick to the paper so you'll need to refresh your paper occasionally,
this will take about five to ten minutes.
Here are my finished products I'm absolutely delighted one cloth is a golden yellow with white
polka dots and stripes and the other cloth is the color of butter and has paler splotches running
across the fabric not bad for a first try there are many ways you can show off a prized piece of
cloth in the 18th century ladies might have used a wax resist dyed cloth as a neck handkerchief
for a pop of color and for modesty, maybe you'll use yours as a bandana or for a small bag
or maybe you'll turn it into a new mask like I did.
At any rate stay safe and tell us in the comments what you'll be doing with your piece of cloth
thank you.