Making do with stash--18th century food storage edition

 I've been meaning to do this little project for some time. I need waxed linen to cover the crocks I have use for food on my petty sutler cart.  I'd read that beeswax was melted and brushed on the linen but that sounded so darn messy. I decided to try something else.

Fortunately, I have a good supply of linen in my cabbage supply.  I also keep a bag of bees wax pellets on hand because I make little fancy bees was cakes for my workshop participants and melting pellets in a can heated in a saucepan of hot water makes quick work.  I can usually measure what I need then just throw out the can after.  Plus pellets melt super quickly.

So here's what I used:

• Scraps of linen
• bees wax pellets
• parchment paper for baking
• iron

I cut my linen into squares / rectangles.  The two smaller pieces with the tan and white stripes will be cut in circles to tie over my crocks.

Cover your ironing surface with parchment paper and lay a piece of linen in the middle.  Sprinkle some bees wax pellets over the fabric.  I put more than I needed on this first square.  You want them evenly distributed but remember that the wax will liquify!

Lay another piece of parchment on top, making sure that the parchment is large enough to accommodate the wax running.

Starting with your hot iron in the middle of the fabric, iron until the wax melts.  It will run so watch it carefully.  When you start in the middle, you will end up pushing excess wax out to the edges.  Make sure it doesn't run beyond the edge of the parchment!

Note how you can see the wax liquify and penetrate the fabric.

Peel the fabric off of the parchment and set someplace flat.  Since there was a good amount of wax that ran onto the parchment, I decided to just peel it off and use it for the next piece.

Turns out it was enough wax to do the trick!

I decided to use fewer pellets on the next piece since I felt like I put it on too thickly with the first.

This seemed to be the perfect amount.  I completed one more piece and decided to cut an additional one since I had some wax on the parchment and figured I'd use it.

As you can see, there wasn't enough wax so I just sprinkled some pellets in the dry areas and re ironed it.  Which worked.

I decided to give all the pieces one last pressing to even out the wax.  I placed each between two clean pieces of parchment and ironed them.  Then I trimmed the edges with my rotary cutter.  I cut the two smaller ones into circles to use on my crocks.

I'm happy with the way these turned out.  I think they will be more durable for wrapping juicy items than the natural parchment paper I had been using.  The square pieces are large enough to wrap some bread or cheese.   This turned out to be a super fast and satisfying little project.