KyKat

I have five sisters, and for our reunion that is coming up in July, I decided to do each of them a quilt, with 6 different little sunbonnet sues, each different, one quilt a bunch of 6 baloons with Sues on them with each of our names, one a bouquet of 6 flowers with Sues in the center of each flower with each of our names, etc, you get the idea. I thought I would make a center panel with crayons, then do hand embroidery embelishments, then hand-quilt each one. Good idea, right? Well, I did the first, the baloon bouquet, and it was as cute as it could be. 6 different colored baloons, 6 different little Sues, the strings tied with a big bow. And I did everything right . . .
Cotton fabric - check
Washed - check
Dried with no fabric softner - check
Ironed freezer paper to back - check
traced design on front and colored in with crayolas - check
Paper towels on ironing board - check
panel face down on paper towels, iron set on "cotton", heat set all work - check

then I decided to wash it again before I did all the other work - embroidery, etc. and !!! Gone! All of it --- washed away!!! What happened??? Any ideas?

debp33

You used fabric crayons, right?

bluteddi

wow... my biggest fear of doing one...

ummm make u didnt press long enough or hot enough? or maybe it needs to " cure"?

I'll be watching.....

KyKat

No. Most of the sites I read, and the fabric crayon packages say that with cotton, you're not supposed to use fabric crayons, that the fabric crayons are only for poly/cotton blends. Is that wrong?

Sadiemae

You didn't use washable crayons did you?

debp33

I don't know if it's wrong, but I have a quilt my class made for me when I was student teaching. It was made from a white cotton sheet with pictures they drew with fabric crayons.

That was 18 years ago and it's been through many, many, many washings. I can still see the pictures and still read the students names on it. It's still my favorite go-to blanket - I use it several times a week when watching TV in the basement.

Do regular crayons "take" on fabric? I'd think they might wash out?

GGinMcKinney

At quilt show I went to in Aug. they used regular Crayon crayolas. They did use paper towel on top the picture and behind it. They pressed several times till all the loose crayon came off. They said these will wash forever.
I wonder if you used washable crayons which do wash out for sure.
I have a friend that uses fabric pens from JoAnns and they wash up very well over the years.

VickyS

I've done the fabric crayons on pillowcases.. which are probably poly blend (didn't check the label) which turned out fine, and used to use regular crayola crayons to do some pretty leaves on muslin which also worked well.

Questions: Did you leave the iron on the crayon/fabric panels until the heat of the iron bled the crayon mix into the paper towels?

Were the crayons Crayola brand?

Why? Because you need to melt the wax completely to release the color. If the heat didn't put the melt into the paper towels you didn't leave the iron on long enough to set the color. It will definitely smell like burning crayons! In this case that is a good smell, because it means you are melting the wax.

Crayola brand crayons have more dye in the crayon than other brands of crayons, so they tend to "stain/dye" the material better than other cheap brands (which I have tried and did NOT have good success with).

You may want to just use fabric markers at this point if you don't want to try the crayon version again. I've used all three (markers, fabric crayons, and Crayola crayons) at one time or another and had good results.

Good luck!

Sadiemae

I love fabric markers.

Izaquilter

I bought the 'special' crayons for fabric at a quilt show....big waste! My friend did a very elegant quilt top with leaves & flowers & just used regular childrens crayons & heat set it. She was an awesome artist so of course this turned out beautiful. She's passed away now or I'd ask her what all she did. So sorry to hear that happened to you. Better luck with the next set.