Batik Continued

Last month we had an interesting post about batiking here at Maho, and what we do with all those old linens from our resort (and hopefully other resorts soon). Last week I noticed our art department was now selling the batik cloth by the yard, which I was very interested in for creating a unique "hideaway" for some shelving at home. Apparently we have plenty of other visitors thinking the same, and even creating what they've seen and learned here at Maho at home. Below are pictures sent to us by one such visitor:

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.