"On Your Mark....Get Set....

MARK!  Bet you thought I was going to say go!  My Fiber Junkies group met yesterday to have a day of play and experimenting. We decided to explore different types of markers for fabric.  I'm sure if you're a quilter or a sewer, you've been to plenty of conferences and seen many wonderful demos on the newest products.  They pull you right in. You buy 1 of each, bring them home, excited to get started but life gets in the way and they get put on the back burner. When you finally do pull them out you scratch your head thinking - why did I buy these and what do they do?

So yesterday we brought our "known" and our "what do they do" products. I would probably never devote a full day to trying out markers on my own, but with a small group - so many more ideas and such a variety of products.

We all made samplers on muslin - tried things with water, without, with rubbing alcohol etc.

 We blended with Q-tips, our fingers and small brushes.

 Some of the products were made just for fabric, others would need an adjustment to make them permanent.

 We had some black and white prints which really lent themselves to trying the different markers.

 Kate brought a product - Aqua-Flo, great for blending. It was filled with water and using the brush on the end, were able to blend the marks more easily.

The Portfolio water soluble oil pastels were among my favorites. They would have to be fixed with a fixative to make them washable on fabric, but they were so slick to use and blended beautifully - also water soluble for easy clean-up.

The pastel dye sticks from Pentel are permanent and made for fabric.  They go on smoothly and blend well together, also great with water on top of the dry mark.

These are my least favorite - not great color and you are limited to using them with a blended fabric, but they do bring back wonderful memories of when I was a Brownie leader and room mother. I did lots of projects with the kids; they are safe and easy to use, so I keep them around for any future grandchildren!

Caran D'Ache are wonderful on fabric but I've had the best success with them by marking them on a blank silkscreen and using an acrylic medium to squeegee them through to the fabric.  Acrylic medium also makes them permanent.

We used many more things, more to follow in the next post. Hope I wet your your appetite just a little.