Marking pens
 

What to use? I need to draw lines on my quilt so I can hand sew it, but none of my "marking" pens for fabric work. The pencil ones are too light (blue and white), and the disappearing ink ones..well the ink seems to disappear before it reaches the fabric cause it does not leave any mark. :(

What about Tailor's Chalk?

I use Frixion pens, but some people really don't like them. Test them on your fabric, as they sometimes leave white lines after being ironed off (I've always had them wash out though)

I use washable crayola markers. The instructor in one of my quilt classes told us about them. Because I hand quilt, sometimes the marks have been on the fabric for over a month and still came out. The blue marks on white took 2 washes. I have been happy with them so far.

If you use these, you need to test on each fabric. I'm glad I did, couldn't get all of it out. My new favorite is tailor's chalk.

I have had good luck with the washable ink pens (Dritz), blue for most fabrics and white for dark ones --the lines disappear when water is used -- I too tried the disappearing ink one (loved the pretty purple color), but alas I live in a very humid part of Texas, and the ink disappeared before I got to my sewing!! LOL -- good luck!!

As w/ anything - always test it on scraps.

Now, w/ that out of the way - I LOVE LOVE LOVE the frixion pens. Thin lines and if i make a mistake, i can take my iron to it and it disappears and allows me to start again.

I always wash my quilts after i am finished, so i'm not worried about "anything" that may be left behind. Prior to learning about the frixion, I just used lead mechanical pencil. By the time my hand/arm got done rubbing against the quilt as i was working on it, there wasn't much left on the quilt.

learned something about using the frixion and the lines left, don't put iron directly down on the fabric, hold a steam iron on the lightest steam sitting you have and steam from above. It will remove the frixion line with out leaving the bleached out line.

is there a frixon pen for dark colors?

they come in several colors black, red, neon pink, neon green and neon yellow and a blue

Are you marking for hand quilting or hand piecing? If you're marking sewing lines for hand piecing, then just about anything that doesn't bleed will work, because once you've sewn the seam, the lines are on the back. I've used pigma pens to mark my hand piecing lines.

For hand quilting, you'll have to test different markers to make sure they come out of your fabric. My favorites are Prismacolor colored pencils in light blue and white, a Bohin ceramic lead marker in white, and Clover's white fine line marker. So long as I make light marks I've had no trouble getting these out, but like I said, the key is to test them first.

Janet