Batik, Tie-Dye and Weaving Level 2

Who it is for. Trainees who have completed Batik, Tie-Dye and Weaving (Level 1) or can show the same skills, including persons with disabilities. In Ghana's TVET framework, National Proficiency II covers work that is mostly routine, done with limited supervision, and leads on to National Certificate I.

Why go further

• Ghanaian batik makers sell full pieces, using reactive dye for backgrounds and vat dye for designs, and buy calico by the 600-yard bale. Working at that scale needs weighed recipes and records.
• Customers and institutions now expect standards. The Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) calls itself the top textile testing agency in Ghana and in 2026 began work on standards for locally made uniform fabrics.
• A Ghana study found that batiks made with correct, steady recipes had good fastness to washing, rubbing and light.

Bridge from Level 1: what you already know

If any box is not ticked, your trainer will give you a short catch-up session before Unit 1.

How the module works

• Each unit has learning outcomes, performance criteria, a range and the evidence your assessor needs. You are judged Competent or Not Yet Competent.
• About 70% of the time is practical.
• Numbers marked example are for practice. Replace them with your own.
• Every unit ends with a Check yourself. Answers are in the Teacher Copy.

Competency standard

Range. Three repeat batches of one reactive colour; the workshop chemical store. Evidence. Batch cards; shade comparison; store log; oral questions.

Weigh by the weight of the cloth

Dyers work out recipes from the dry weight of the cloth (often written %WOG, "weight of goods"). For example, at 0.06% WOG, 250 g of yarn needs 0.15 g of dye. Natural dye mordants are worked out the same way.

The sum: dye in grams = cloth weight in grams × % ÷ 100.

1. Weigh the dry, scoured cloth.
2. Choose the shade depth. Light shades use a small percentage; one dyer's light range runs up to 0.5% and dark range up to 4%.
3. Work out the dye. For tiny amounts, make a stock solution, for example 1 g dye in 100 g water, and measure it by volume.
4. Write the recipe on a batch card before you start.

Liquor ratio

The liquor ratio is the weight of water to the weight of cloth. One cotton protocol uses 7,500 ml of water for 250 g of yarn, about 30:1. A steady ratio gives a steady shade. Mark your buckets with lines every 5 litres.

The batch card

Matching a shade

1. Keep a standard: a dried, labelled swatch of each colour you sell.
2. Compare new cloth to the standard dry, in daylight, side by side.
3. If it is lighter, the next batch gets a little more dye; if darker, a little less. Change one thing at a time and record it.
4. Results also change with the weather and the age of the dye powder, so note the weather and the dye's purchase date.

The chemical store

Caustic soda is sold in Ghana in 25 kg bags; listings in October 2026 showed about GH¢320 to GH¢450 for 25 kg of flakes or pearls. Buy only what you can store safely.

Check yourself: Unit 1

1. What does "2% WOG" mean?
2. Why do you judge a colour dry and in daylight?
3. Name two rules for storing hydros.

Competency standard

Range. Four 1-yard pieces and one 4-yard piece; reactive and vat dyes. Evidence. Five finished pieces; batch cards; oral questions.

Four advanced resists

These methods come from Japanese shibori, a family of folding, stitching and binding resists. Use them with your own designs.

1. Stitched resist (nui)

1. Draw lines or shapes lightly with chalk.
2. Sew running stitches along the lines with strong thread, leaving long tails.
3. Pull each thread tight to gather the cloth hard, and knot it.
4. Dye. Cut and remove the threads after rinsing.

• Gives fine dotted lines and shapes. It is slow but gives great control. Use it for borders and names.

2. Pole wrapping (arashi)

1. Wrap the damp cloth diagonally around a PVC pipe.
2. Wind string around it tightly in a spiral.
3. Push the cloth and string down the pole so it scrunches into tight pleats.
4. Dye by dipping the pole or by pouring. The result looks like driving rain.

3. Clamped resist (itajime)

1. Fold the cloth into a long strip, then fold it back and forth into a square or triangle stack.
2. Put two matching boards (or plastic shapes) on each side.
3. Clamp or tie them tightly.
4. Dye. The covered shapes stay pale and repeat across the cloth.

4. Spider (kumo)

1. Pleat small sections of cloth finely and evenly.
2. Bind each one tightly from the base to the tip.
3. Dye. It gives spider-web circles.

Multi-colour tie-dye

1. Plan light to dark. Yellow, then red over it gives orange and red; blue last.
2. Spot colour with squeeze bottles for planned areas (Level 1 method).
3. Over-dye: after the first colour, rinse, add more ties, then dye a darker colour. The new ties keep the first colour.
4. Vat over reactive: Ghanaian makers use reactive dye for the background and vat dye for designs. Dye and fix the reactive colour fully first, then go to the vat.
5. Record every stage on one batch card.

Check yourself: Unit 2

1. How does pole wrapping make its pattern?
2. In multi-colour work, which colour goes first, light or dark?
3. What do the boards do in a clamped resist?

Competency standard

Range. One supervised vat preparation; one natural dye batch; the wastewater drum. Evidence. Vat record; two dyed pieces; wastewater log; oral questions.

How much chemical? A Ghana example

A Tema maker reported using, for one bale of 600 yards of calico, about three boxes of wax, two dyes (reactive and vat), 5 kg hydros, 4 kg "soda", 1 kg soda ash and 1 kg salt. The article lists "soda" separately from soda ash; it is probably caustic soda, but this is not verified. Use these only to plan your buying. For each bath, follow the dye maker's recipe and test.

Prepare a stock vat (supervised)

A textbook gives these stages: reduce the dye to its soluble leuco form with hydros and caustic soda, keeping an excess of both; vat at 50 to 60 °C; dye for 45 to 60 minutes; oxidise; then soap at the boil.

1. Plan. Weigh the dry cloth. Read the dye maker's recipe for that dye and shade. Write a batch card.
2. Warm water. Measure water at about 50 to 60 °C into a plastic drum or enamel pot.
3. Paste the dye. In a small jug, paste the vat dye with a little warm water until smooth.
4. Caustic soda. In a separate container, add the weighed caustic soda slowly to water (never water to caustic), stirring with a long stick. It gets hot.
5. Add the caustic solution and dye paste to the warm water and stir gently.
6. Hydros last. Sprinkle the weighed hydros onto the surface and stir gently. Close the hydros tin at once.
7. Wait 10 to 15 minutes (or as the dye maker says) with a lid on. The bath changes colour as the dye reduces; indigo turns yellowish.
8. Test (below). Do not dye until the vat passes.

Test the vat

• Spot test: put a drop of vat liquor on filter paper. If it spreads evenly with no specks in the centre, the dye is fully dissolved; specks mean it is not fully vatted.
• Hydros check: vat yellow test paper turns blue within seconds if there is enough hydros.
• Alkali check: phenolphthalein paper turns intense pink if there is enough caustic soda.
• Top up: hydros breaks down in air and uses up some alkali, so a working vat needs topping up. Add small, weighed amounts and record them.

Dye, oxidise and soap

1. Wet out the cloth and squeeze it.
2. Lower it in gently. Move it slowly under the surface; do not splash or whisk air in.
3. Dye for the time on your card (a textbook range is 45 to 60 minutes for full immersion). For tie-dye and batik dips, follow your trainer's dip times.
4. Lift out slowly, squeeze over the vat, and air the cloth fully until the colour stops changing.
5. Repeat dips for depth: several dips in a weaker bath rub off less than one strong dip.
6. Rinse, then soap at the boil; a textbook bath is 3 g/l soap and 1 g/l soda ash for 20 to 30 minutes. For waxed batik, soap after dewaxing.
7. Wash until the water is clear, then do the wash and rub tests.

Natural dyeing with a mordant

1. Scour the cotton well. A supplier's method scours cotton with 5.5% cellulose scour and 2% soda ash, hot, for 30 to 45 minutes.
2. Mordant. The same supplier mordants cotton with 5 to 10% aluminium acetate at about 100 °F (38 °C) for 45 minutes, then fixes it in a 5% chalk (calcium carbonate) bath for 30 minutes before dyeing. Alum is a safer mordant than chrome and other metal salts. Never use potassium dichromate.
3. Make the dye. For badie bark (Bridelia ferruginea): soak, pound and boil the inner bark, strain, and boil again until it thickens. A Ghana study found soda ash improved the colour and fastness of badie dye.
4. Dye the mordanted cloth in the strained dye bath, moving it often. Test a strip first.
5. Rinse and dry in the shade.
6. Record plant, part, weight, water, mordant and result.

Wastewater Level 2

1. Keep separate drums for vat waste and for reactive and natural dye waste.
2. Reuse baths where you can (a reactive bath for a paler batch; a vat by topping up).
3. Let solids settle. Scoop out settled sludge into a sealed bag for disposal as advised.
4. Check pH with paper. Many disposal rules ask that baths be cool and near neutral.
5. Ghana's effluent standard is GS 1212:2019, and environmental law is now the Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124). Ask the EPA Western Regional office what a small dyer must do; this was not verified here.
6. Log the date, drum, volume, pH and what you did.

Check yourself: Unit 3

1. In what order do you add caustic soda and water, and why?
2. What does the vat yellow paper test tell you?
3. Why must you never add acid to fresh vat waste?

Competency standard

Range. One 6-yard three-colour piece; one 2-yard crackle piece. Evidence. Design sheet; finished pieces; wax log; oral questions.

Plan the repeat

1. Measure the cloth width (calico is often about 36 to 44 inches; measure yours).
2. Decide the repeat: a "block" (stamps in a grid), a "half-drop" (each row shifts half a stamp) or a border plus field.
3. Draw it at small scale on squared paper.
4. Mark guide lines on the cloth with tailor's chalk or a chalk line every 10 to 20 cm.

A stamp set

1. Cut a main stamp, a filler (small dot or leaf) and a border stamp.
2. Keep sizes that fit the repeat: for example, a 10 cm main stamp and 10 cm grid.
3. Seal each in wax.
4. Label and store them flat, away from sun.

Layering colours (light to dark)

1. Stage 1: wax the parts that will stay white. Dye the first, lightest colour (cold bath).
2. Rinse and dry in the sun.
3. Stage 2: wax the parts that will stay the first colour. Dye the second colour.
4. Rinse and dry.
5. Stage 3: wax the parts for the second colour. Dye the darkest colour.
6. Dewax, rinse, soap and dry. Batik makers may stamp and dye one cloth several times to build layers.

Each colour needs its own bucket, decided in advance; the cloth is dipped and checked until the colour is right.

Controlling crackle

• More crackle: cool the waxed cloth and crumple it before dyeing; large waxed areas can be broken on purpose.
• Less crackle: handle waxed cloth flat; keep the dye bath cool but not cold enough to make the wax brittle; dye in a wide basin, not a narrow bucket.
• More paraffin in the wax mix is generally thought to crack more and beeswax to flex more (common batik teaching; not verified from a measured source). Test your mix and record it.

Dewax cleanly and manage wax

1. Bring water to the boil in a large pot. Put the batik in and stir until the wax melts off.
2. Lift out, rinse in cold water to remove the last wax.
3. Let the dewax water cool. Skim and save the floating wax for reuse.
4. Weigh wax in and wax recovered each week. Record it in the wax log. Recovered wax lowers your costs.
5. Strain recovered wax through cloth when remelting, to remove dye bits.

Faults on yardage

Check yourself: Unit 4

1. What do you wax before the first dye bath?
2. Name two ways to get more crackle.
3. Why keep a wax log?

Competency standard

Range. A strip or table loom with heddles; cotton yarn. Evidence. Two 2 m strips joined into a runner; warp plan; oral questions.

Plan a warp

1. Decide the strip width and length. Add about 50 cm for waste at the ends and for tying on.
2. Count the warp threads: width (cm) × threads per cm.
3. Plan the warp stripes: in Kente-style cloth, patterns are mainly identified by warp stripes, and simple warp-stripe cloths use plain weave with one pair of heddles.
4. Write the plan: colour, number of threads, order.

Wind and dress the loom

1. Wind the warp round two fixed pegs (or chairs) at the planned length, counting threads in groups of 10 with a tie between groups.
2. Tie a cross at one end (threads crossing in a figure of eight) so they stay in order.
3. Thread each warp through its heddle in order (one through heddle 1, the next through heddle 2).
4. Tie the warp onto the front stick in small bunches with even tension.
5. Weave a few rows of thick waste yarn to spread the warp evenly.

Simple weaves

Kente's decorated cloths add weft patterns using a third heddle. That skill takes years under a master weaver; this module does not teach it.

Even work

• Beat every row with the same force.
• Leave the weft in an arch so edges stay straight.
• Measure the width every 10 cm; record it in your log.
• Sit well and take breaks: long hours and forced postures are linked to back pain in handloom weavers.

Join and finish

1. Lay two strips side by side, right side up, with stripes matched.
2. Join them with a small, even ladder stitch or a decorative joining stitch in matching yarn, as Kente strips are sewn edge to edge.
3. Finish the ends: knot warp ends in small bunches, or turn and hem.
4. Press under a damp cloth.

Products and honest names

• Table runners, bag straps, cushion fronts, bookmarks, trims for batik shirts and bags.
• Name them "handwoven strip", "strip-woven runner" or "Kente-inspired" if inspired by Kente colours; never "Kente". Only cloth woven traditionally in approved communities may use the Kente name.
• Copying a named traditional pattern for sale outside customary use may need Folklore Board permission. Design your own stripe orders.

Check yourself: Unit 5

1. Why do you tie a cross in the warp?
2. What makes warp stripes?
3. What honest name could you give your strip-woven runner?

Competency standard

Range. Batik or tie-dye yardage; one partner tailor. Evidence. Three products; test record; grading sheet; labels.

Shrinkage first

Cotton can shrink in the first washes. Dyeing and washing already shrink it; still, test before cutting:

1. Cut a 50 cm square from the finished cloth. Mark it.
2. Wash and dry it as a customer would.
3. Measure again. Shrinkage % = (before − after) ÷ before × 100.
4. Add that much to your cutting sizes.

Three products

Scarf (0.5 × 2 yards): narrow double hem (Level 1), or a rolled hem by machine; corners mitred.

Table linen set: one table cloth, four napkins (about 45 cm square, example size), one runner.

1. Square the cloth by tearing along the threads.
2. Plan the layout so the pattern is centred on each napkin.
3. Hem all pieces the same width.
4. Check that napkins are the same size (within 0.5 cm).

Shirt with a tailor: agree the size, the pattern placement (centre the design on the back and front), and the price before cutting. The hub's Garment Making manual covers sewing. Batik shirts sold for about GH¢99 in Accra listings in October 2026.

Fastness tests and grading

1. Wash test: wash a sample with a white cotton strip in hot soapy water; look for colour on the white.
2. Rub test: rub dry, then wet, with a white cloth 10 times.
3. Light test: cover half a strip with card and leave it in the sun for a week; compare.
4. The GSA is Ghana's main textile testing body; for orders that demand certified results, send samples to the GSA (fees not verified).

Labels and packing

• Research in Ghana found that most clothes have no care labels and that shoppers know little about them. A clear label sets you apart.
• Your label: brand name, "100% cotton" (only if you tested it), "Hand-dyed batik" or "Hand-dyed tie-dye", size, and care: "Wash cold separately the first time; dry in shade; iron on reverse".
• Swing tag: product name, price, phone or WhatsApp number, and the honest name (never "Kente" for your cloth).
• Pack in clean, dry bags with the label showing.

Check yourself: Unit 6

1. How do you work out shrinkage %?
2. What makes an item "seconds"?
3. Name four things on your product label.

Competency standard

Range. The trainee's own batch and plan. Evidence. Batch costing; price list; order form; marketing plan.

Cost a batch

Count everything: cloth, dyes, chemicals, wax (less what you recover), fuel, water, soap, labels, packing, transport, and labour, including your own. Ghana's 2026 national daily minimum wage is GH¢21.77; pay helpers at least this.

Retail and wholesale

• Retail (to the person who wears it): higher price, small amounts, more selling time.
• Wholesale (to shops and resellers): lower price per piece, larger orders, faster sales. Set a minimum order and a wholesale price that still covers all costs and some profit.
• Mark-up is profit as a % of cost; margin is profit as a % of the selling price. Do not mix them up.

Orders done right

1. Write the order: customer, product, yards or pieces, colour (attach a swatch), design, price, deposit, balance, delivery date.
2. Take a deposit (for example half) before buying cloth and chemicals (house rule; agree with each customer).
3. Make a sample for big orders and get it approved.
4. Keep the approved swatch as the standard (Unit 1).
5. Deliver on time; record the balance paid.

Location settings that give good returns

Business ideas and ingenuity

Market yourself

• Portfolio: a photo album and swatch book of your best work, with dates.
• Social media: small Ghanaian fashion firms market mostly through WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook. Post process videos (waxing, dipping, opening a tie-dye).
• WhatsApp Business catalogue with prices and sizes; quick replies for common questions.
• Google Business Profile so people nearby can find your workshop.
• Referrals: a small discount for customers who bring a friend; partner with tailors.
• Fugu Wednesdays and local-wear days raise demand for Ghanaian cloth.

Accessibility

Ghana's Persons with Disability Act, 2006 (Act 715) protects the right of persons with disabilities to work. The Assemblies' disability fund rose to 5% in 2026 and now favours skills, assistive devices and start-up capital. A trainee or owner with a disability may ask the Assembly's disability desk for support with tools.

• Workable tasks: design, stamp cutting, folding and binding, stitched resist, weaving on a table loom, finishing, labelling, grading, sales and social media.
• Adjustments: dye basins on stands at seated height; long-handled tongs; a partner for vat preparation and hot wax; tactile and large-print labels on tins; picture recipes for Deaf workers; vibrating or light timers; clear paths for wheelchairs between stations.

Check yourself: Unit 7

1. What is the difference between mark-up and margin?
2. Why take a deposit before a big order?
3. Name three ways to market your work.

1. Work out the dye for 800 g of cloth at 1.5% WOG.
2. What water do you need for 800 g at 30:1?
3. Name two rules for storing hydros.
4. Describe the arashi (pole-wrapping) method.
5. In what order do you add the ingredients when you prepare a vat?
6. Name the three vat tests.
7. Why must acid never go into fresh vat waste?
8. What mordant and fixing steps does the supplier method use for cotton?
9. In multi-colour batik, what do you wax first?
10. What do warp stripes depend on?
11. How do you work out shrinkage %?
12. A piece costs GH¢80 and sells for GH¢120. What are the mark-up and margin?

Best next reads: the Inflibnet chapter on vat dyes; the HSE page on dyes and dyeing; the hub's Garment Making Level 2, Workplace Safety Level 2 and Money Skills Level 2 manuals.

What this module does not cover: registering a business, employing staff, full bookkeeping, Kente supplementary-weft patterning, screen printing and discharge printing (see Level 3 and the hub's other manuals).

Every source used in this manual is listed, with links, in the Teacher Copy.