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Featured Fabric

Featuring Batiks and the Batik Process!
The Hingeley Road Quilt Show is printing an exclusive fabric color just for the Minnesota Charms Quilt Show!  And this is NOT it!  It will be unveiled at the show.

Look for samples, kits, bundles and yardage in Hingeley Road Quilt Shop's booth.



How Batiks are Made

The Making of Hoffman Bali Batiks
produced by Hoffman California Fabrics

The entire batik and hand-dye process is done without the use of machinery.  It is done at our facility in Bali, Indonesia, in very simple and primitive conditions, mostly outdoors.  Mother Nature helps in the process by heat-setting the dye as our vibrantly colored fabrics are stretched out in open fields to dry naturally in the sun. 

The fabric is painted with dye and/or batiked (stamped with a design motif). Most often our fabrics are created with a combination of these processes.  Some  designs have as many as six different techniques used to create the finished yardage.  The people that produce these beautiful fabrics come from families with generations of experience.

Hoffman Bali Batiks & Handprints start with concepts and inspirations collected by our in-house textile artists who work at Hoffman California Fabrics headquarters in Mission Viejo, California. The in-house textile artists crate each batik design and select the colors that are to be used.

The team in Bali receives the artwork, color schematics and designs specifications.  Once given direction, a master craftsperson in Bali will hand-turn pieces of metal to create a stamp called a "chop". The chop is used to stamp wax on the fabric, creating a resist to the dye and thus etching the design on the fabric.  Once the chop is made, other specialists on the Bali team execute the batiking and dyeing processes.

We use only the finest fiber-reactive dyes and waxes imported from Europe, and a deluxe base cloth.  The fabric used is a top-grade cotton fabric with an extremely high thread count.  The fabric has been "combed and carded", a process that removes excess cotton threads and lint and leaves a nice smooth fabric with a slight sheen.  The fabric is also shrunk, sanitized and mercerized, which allows it to take dye more readily.  Thus, the fabric has been "prepared for dying" often referred to as PFD fabric.

Often we're asked how to determine the "right side" versus the "wrong side" of our batiks and handprints.  The difference is very subtle because we are using the best cotton fabric, dyes and waxes available.  Having gone through several washes, our Bali fabrics can be used right away. Quilters who prefer to wash fabric before using (or to avoid any chance the fabric retained something from the natural environment) are encouraged to embrace these methods:

• Use a low-phosphate detergent such as Orvus Quilt Soap

• Wash in cold water.  Discolored tub water means that a few "exhausted dyes" are being released; but these dyes will not attach themselves to other fabrics in the wash.

• Remove from the wash tub and place in the dryer as soon as the wash cycle is completed.

As a company, we are proud of the fact that Hoffman California Fabrics built and maintains a dye-treatment plant for its Bali operation.  In this plant, dyes used in the batik process are filtered and toxins removed before the exhausted dyes are released into the environment.  Marty Hoffman each year, spends several months in Bali overseeing the production process.

There are three main product lines in our Bali offerings:

• Style 1895 Hand-dyes: (also known as Watercolors) - these are single color hand-dyes that are mostly solid but carry some gradation in hue because the fabric was scrunched or smocked during the dyeing process.

• Handpaints:  These hand-dyed fabrics carry two or more colors and show a more mottled, smudged or textured look.

• Batiks: These fabrics also are made by hand using the metal stamp (chop) dipped in wax to crate a specific pattern on the cloth.  The wax creates a resist so that it repels the next dye application.  when the wax has been boiled off, the protected design motif can be seen on the fabric.  The dye, wax, chop and over-dye processes may be repeated, according to the complexity of the overall design being achieved.

Because human hands make the batik and hand-dyed fabric, no two yards are exactly alike.  The cloth is a true work of handmade art.

Hoffman California Fabrics releases two major collections of batik and handpainted fabrics each year.  This happens during the spring and fall wholesale tradeshows know as Quilt Market.  The tradeshows are open only to retailers and manufacturers.

Three years ago, we introduced Hoffman Bali Pops (R) to the quilting market.  A Hoffman Bali Pop is a package of 40 strips of batiks and handpaints, each measuring 2.5" wide and about 44" long.  It has proven to be a very "pop"ular product, allowing quilters to get a "ready, set, go!" start on their projects.  Hoffman Bali Pops are available in several color packs.  Inspired by these gorgeous batik assortments, several well-known pattern designers have published quilt designs and pattern books using Bali Pops.

Edited by Michelle Flores, marketing coordinator for Hoffman California Fabrics