Green Musings of an Eco Resort

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Wax On, Wax Off



Not just a Karate training technique anymore. Now its recycling. Sometimes we have linens that become unusable. They get a stain or a rip or its just time to retire them. Instead of tossing them out, we recycle them into hand made items for sale in our shop. Annalisa is our resident artist in our textiles studio. She and her team prepare all of the fabric, put designs into it with wax (wax on), dye it, boil the wax out (wax off), some times adding more wax and more dye for multiple colored cloth, and then they are finally ready for the fabric to be cut, sewn, transformed into a bag, or place settings, bandannas, and anything else our seamstresses can come up with. The process isn't overly technical. In fact, many people take a class here making their own table runner and then go home and continue recycling by buying home kits from hobby stores. You need wax, a brush or stamps, dye, and boiling water; and of course some old linens.

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