A reference guide to all you need to know to dye fabric, including necessary tools, the best dyes, which fabrics to use, additives, precautions, and more. Dyeing expert and author of Fabric Dyer’s Dictionary, Linda Johansen offers a full overview of the process, including special tips and techniques for tricky colors. The compact size is perfect to take along to a class or to the fabric store to match complementary fabrics and materials. And the hidden wire-o binding will allow the guide to lay flat next to your work surface for easy reference. Dyeing is addictive! You’ll come back to this must-have guide over and over Complete and easy-to-follow recipes for every shade and hue for each color of the spectrum Includes directions for Dharma and ProChemical dyes

This guide to Apache Batik—the Java library that can be used to read SVG files and translate the instructions in the files into graphics—shows how Batik can also be used to save the graphics as JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, and other formats, so that the graphics can be transferred. Using Batik to create animation similar to Flash movies and its use for creating a drawing program such as Corel DRAW are also covered.

Batik occupies a special place in Indonesian culture. Each fabric has a rich story to tell--as a reflection of the nation's religious beliefs, sophisticated court cultures and cosmopolitan history. The extraordinary textiles in this book are from the collections of Rudolf Smend and Donald Harper. Most date from the period 1880 to 1930 when the art of batik reached its apogee. Having collected historical batik for over thirty years and published two books on the subject, Rudolf Smend has invited his friend and fellow batik specialist Donald Harper to contribute his fine collection to this publication as well. None of the batik in this book have been published before. They represent an exquisite cross-section of the batik production of Java--the most important batik-producing region in the world. The cloths are complemented by vintage photographs from the first quarter of the 20th century demonstrating how the batik were worn at court and at home. Three are from museums in Dresden and Cologne, while three are from the private collection of Leo Haks. The others have been collected over the past 30 years from private sources in Java. The captions are by Maria Wronska-Friend, an ethnologist and batik expert who frequently visits Indonesian batik centers and has worked for many years as an anthropologist in Papua New Guinea. Her contributions provide fundamental knowledge for lovers of this art form while at the same time providing new insights for experts. Rudolf Smend has invited other batik aficionados of his generation to share their passion for batik in this book. Inger McCabe Elliott, author of the bestselling Batik: Fabled Cloth of Java has contributed her lifelong experience. Other authorities like Annegret Haake, Brigitte Khan Majlis and Jonathan Hope share their views and expertise in these pages. This book represents a labor of love and a lifetime of friendship for the two authors, who hope it will provide inspiration to a whole new generation of batik lovers.

Stenciling, batik, block printing, tie dyeing, freehand painting, silk screen printing, and a number of novelty decorations such as relief and ball point painting, flocking, and transferring pictures are all covered in this well-known introduction. If you have ever wanted to create your own fabric designs, from adding stenciled or printed details to creating overall designs with batik or tie dying, this book will guide you quickly and easily to the best techniques. Through over 350 illustrations and complete step-by-step explanations, the author leads you through every step of each technique from gathering materials and creating designs all the way through until the finishing touches have been completed. Along the way you will have learned basic design considerations — the way each technique creates its own design limitations, two- and three-color processes, the best inks and dues for each technique, the tools (including how to make many of them), the working area set up, and many unusual effects with basic exercises, specific projects, and the best procedures for using all the basic methods you are likely to use. With so many methods contained in one book, you can easily discover the ones best suited to your own time, budget, and needs. In addition, a number of illustrations of completed items give you a better idea of the possibilities of each technique and show the best examples of each. Artists, designers, students, and craftsmen will welcome this opportunity to learn a number of techniques for the hand decoration of fabric. By the time you finish you will be well acquainted with the most successful methods that you can use and can go on to design and decorate fabrics on your own.