Coloring on fabric...
 

I am going to make a "coloring" baby quilt. The designs are machine embroidered on 100% cotton fabric and then family will color the shapes. It needs to be something that will take lots of washing. Any suggestions as to what will hold up the best?

interesting idea. i don't have any suggestions, but am interested in other replies

I personally like & use Derwent Inktense blocks/pencils. They are non-toxic, which is important to me for baby quilts. It is important that the recipient be willing to wash the quilt in cold water -- but that's the washing instruction I include with all my quilts.
You need to set the ink. It can be done with aloe gel, but I prefer using fabric/textile medium. I use Golden brand when I can get to the local art supply store. Otherwise, I buy whatever brand I can find at Hobby Lobby -- which takes 7 days to "cure" before the fabric can be washed.

I am a little confused. is your intent to have family members color it once and then set the coloring permanently? Or is your intent to create a quilt that can be colored over and over again and washed between coloring in the hopes that all color is removed like those stuffed animals that were quite popular a few years back? Like this:
https://www.amazon.com/ALEX-Toys-Cra.../dp/B000G2HSB6

Then I would think the medium used to color would be just as important as the fabric. For something like this I would use a very good quality bleached muslin and maybe even some nice sharp black and white prints that can be colored in like a coloring book.

I made a snowman quilt that my granddaughters coloured using Crayola crayons. I heat set the crayons using a dry iron with paper towels on top of the colouring (to absorb excess colour). This quilt has been washed several times & have not noticed any fading.

Both inktense pencils (with textile medium) and Crayola crayons are good options. There are also fabric crayons where you color the paper and then transfer it to the fabric by heat (iron). That has not been as effective in my experience. The nice thing about both the pencils and the crayons is that if the color is not vibrant enough, you can go over it again and again.

One more note about InkTense... when blending colors, whichever color you lay down first tends to be the dominant color. It will create a blend, but if you put down red first, then yellow, you'll get more of a red-orange. If you put down the yellow first, it will make a truer orange with a very slightly more yellow-orange hue (yellow doesn't show as dominantly as red or blue).

this is what I'd do too

How do you use the textile medium to set the ink with Inktense pencils? Can you heat set them with an iron instead?

Rob

I want the color to be permanent and being a baby quilt I assume it's going to be washed quite a bit....so looking for a meduim that will last as long as possible.