Beautiful Batiks

We headed to the Hoffman Batik factory today. We had unlimited acces to see how these amazingly beautiful fabrics are made. It's a process of dyeing and waxing and overdyeing, sometimes as many as 4-5 times. Hoffman is definitely the premiere batik manufacturer. All of the dyeing and stamping and sorting is all done by hand. There was also a table of workers folding and packing the fabric into assorted bundles. I am still scratching my head about how they achieve consistency in the designs of their fabrics from bolt to bolt.

I did find this YouTube video of the process, but I'll share my photos.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPHwuI_GHHo

Quality Control

Piecing the lengths together

Packaging fat quarters
The chops that are used to stamp the fabric.

Slabs of wax that are melted for the resist.

STamping the fabric with a chop that has been dipped in the melted wax.

Rinsing the excess dye out of the fabric.

Overdyeing and setting the colors in the field.

 

Finished fabric ready to ship

And some roadside photos

 

 

 

 

There was a religious ceremony, as there are on many days.

The women bring their offerings to the temple to be blessed by the priest.

 

Can you name the fruits on my breakfast plate?