Batik lesson becomes a rice pillow

Recently I had coffee at a batik shop with a few friends. This particular shop makes stamp printed fabrics for home decor as opposed to fabrics for clothing. We were able to learn all about the batik process. Stamps can take months to create and start with a drawing. Then individual pieces of copper sheeting are placed until the design is done. When used, the stamps are pressed onto wax containing soft plates ( to avoid excess) and then placed onto blank fabric repeatedly to create a pattern that completely covers 30 meters of fabric. These artists work quickly but precisely aligning one stamp to the next and one row to the next so it appears continuous. Of course, the stamp design must lend itself to this. Then the fabric is dyed and rinsed and dried. If multiple colors are to be used, stamps must also be made to block out certain areas on subsequent stampings. With each color, the fabric is stamped with wax, dyed, rinsed and dried. After the final color application this shop adds a "crinkle" texturing to the background. The fabric is folded up with wax still in place and then the men beat at the fabric with large sticks. I don't understand why they don't accidentally hit each other because they are working in close proximity to each other. After this step which breaks up the wax coverings a little, the fabric is dyed again and rinsed and dried again.

The shop had a mini stamping facility setup outside the shop for our visit. We were able to use a stamp and create a dyed batik fabric. This was mine. You could choose green or brown. I chose brown.

What did I do with my small piece of batik?  I made a rice pillow on my new sewing machine. Fish on one side, flowers on the other.