Get to Know your Sarong - The Batik Tools

So if you're well informed, you'll know that Batik is a traditional art medium and methodology for creating designs on cloth. It is a technique of applying wax to portions of the material and then dyeing it with colors, followed by removing the wax. We do realize that there's a lot of intricate craftsmanship being put into each sarong piece!

Now the question is, how exactly are they applying wax to the cloth? To answer this question, we'd like to introduce two traditional instruments in the art of Batik making - the Tjanting (Canting) and the Tjaps (Chops).

A 'Tjanting' is a hand drawing tool that functions as a wax pen. This ancient Javanese gadget is used to hold hot wax in a tiny copper bowl attached to a wooden handle. This gives an artist better control and precision when hand crafting batik pattern lines or dots onto a sarong material.

The 'Tjaps' are Batik stamps which are made of copper, where each stamp consist of patterns or designs that are cut out and shaped in detail. The tool is then dipped into wax and used to stamp onto the sarong material to get the best results of aligned and accurate repeat patterns or design borders.

As we continue to run about and meet all the amazing people behind the scenes while sourcing and researching for the best sarong selections, we also like to understand and share knowledge of the production processes as well as cultural references. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Read more about 'What is Batik' or shop for an Indonesian Batik Cotton Sarong!

1 WORLD SARONGS - NEW FOR 2009

Happy New Year 2009!

How was your holiday season?

Hope you had a safe and joyful time with your family, friends and coworkers.

Well, we sure had a busy time the last few months.

We have all kinds of new items coming up.

You're going to love them! They are all beautiful!

We've outdone ourselves again, if we may say so!

You know what they, "A picture is worth a thousand words!"

So we'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. Here's a few pictures just to give you a small taste of what's coming down the pipe.

We hope to have everything posted to our site and orderable within the next few weeks.

Stay tuned and keep an eye on 1 World Sarongs - New Arrivals

How to Tie a Sarong / Pareo coming soon!

Here's a sneak preview of our new How to Tie a Sarong / Pareo Video that we will be releasing soon!

Stay tuned... ;-)

How to Care for a Sarong - 5 Easy Steps

How to care for your sarongs is a question we hear quite often.

So, I asked Nancy J., who is one of our long time 1 World Sarongs customers (8 years) and has bought literally hundreds if not thousands of sarongs from us and therefore an expert in caring for sarongs. Nancy turns our sarongs into beautiful outfits. She's an independent seamstress / fashion designer who creates marvelous caftans / ponchos from our sarongs to sell to specialty boutiques in New Mexico.

Nancy called to place an order the other day(knowing we're getting our delivery and to get first dibs), as she does every few months, so I figured this was the perfect time to pick her brain and ask about how she cares for her sarongs.

So here's what she said:

1. Unfold your sarong and shake it out a little
2. Load into your washer machine (Nancy does up to eight sarongs at a time)
   
3. Set your washer to cold water rinse - with medium water level
   
4. When washer is finished take sarongs and shake out a little and separate them
   
5. Load into dryer with a fabric softener - delicate setting - for 30 minutes
6. After 30 minutes clean the lint filter and then run dryer for another 10 minutes
7. Take sarongs out of dryer and spread them out on a bed or flat surface (Nancy folds them in half)
8. Then run your hands over them to get any wrinkles out

Notes:

Make sure to take your sarongs out of the dryer right away so they don't wrinkle.

If you do decide to iron your sarongs make sure you set your iron on a very low setting.

Note, this is for the care of rayon sarongs and of course cotton or silk or poly should be handled differently. (We'll cover those at another time)

The advantage to washing this way is the dryer will set the colors of your sarongs so you don't have to worry about the colors running.

Wasn't that simple?

Ok, you got us...that was eight steps ;-) just checking to see if your paying attention :-P

This method applies to our lovely clothing too. So just use the same methods to care for your sundresses and other items from 1 World Sarongs.

Have an idea on how to care for your sarongs / clothing?

A different method?

A better way to do it?

Why not leave us your comments or suggestions?

Hope you're having a wonderful summer,

Terry

P.S. Just found a link to an interesting site about fabric care and doing laundry: http://www.textileaffairs.com/