Batik

On May 15, our ship stopped in Penang, Malaysia. The highlight of the visit for me was a tour of a traditional, high quality batik factory.

The batik was all made with lots of authentic hand work. One type of batik was called block printed batik. It was made by putting a pattern onto fabric using a large version of the pattern dipped into wax.

The same stamp is used over and over to create the pattern and there is much skill involved in placing the stamp to create a seamless design. After this step, the fabric is dyed, creating the pattern. This site seems to describe this process.

A more labor intensive (and more expensive) method was also demonstrated. It is called hand-drawn batik. For this version, a pattern is lightly drawn on the fabric. Wax is carefully painted by hand over the lines. Then, the color is applied between the various lines. Time is spent to blend the colors. This is a highly skilled process.

The result was stunning.