Batik IX: Abundant Phineas

A door opens briefly:

“You can’t call an elephant abundant.”

“An elephant is large. But abundant has to do with amount.”

The door recloses.

A student must have left their 3rd grade classroom as the teacher helped students understand the concept of “abundant”, perhaps a vocabulary word for the week.

Now my mind whirs….Can I call an elephant abundant? Certainly I can list elephant abundances:

• weight

• wrinkles

• mass

• wisdom

• years of living

• food eaten

• poop- food undigested

As I tell my husband about this highlight of my day substitute teaching, he says:

“But I want to name my elephant Abundant, Abundant Phineas.”

Five years later, Abundant Phineas the Elephant is still swirling in my head. With a new batik pen it is time to create Abundant Phineas. After sketching my design with pencil on yellow fabric, I use my batik pen to outline and and embellish Aundant Phineas in wax. After dyeing the fabric in red dye, I boil the fabric to set the dye color and to remove the wax. When the fabric is dry, I layer and quilt Abundant Phineas. This project brings together three of my favorite things: dyeing, batik, and elephants.