Monday 17 January 2011

Disappearing Marker

I've read a few reviews on marking pens over the years and even bought one myself last year. It's a pink water soluble disappearing marker made by Singer (like my machine - I'm such a loyal customer :)

I decided to personalize the Red & Aqua quilt for my friend's baby boy named Jack. So I wrote his name across the top and his birth-time, -date and weight at birth across the bottom.

The marking pen has a fine point and a broad tip, and I find that the fine point often doesn't show up or disappears so quickly, that I can't quilt fast enough to keep up with it. So after a moment of hesitation, I took the broad tip and started writing. It showed up well, though the writing was quite fat and I was *hoping* it would go away afterwards! (I'm not one for testing swatches. I never test cremes on hidden parts of my body, I never knit a gauge - no wonder things don't work out in the "knitting of garments" department... luckily, I've not had any disasters with cremes yet!)

Here's what it looked like about 10 min after I marked the text; you can see that the writing is relatively faint.


So imagine my horror when I sprayed it with water and the paint just intensified 10 x!

There I was standing with my water spray bottle (I wanted to mail the quilt the next day, so didn't want to put it in the sink or through the wash...), going pffft, pffft, pffft in rapid succession to get as much water on that section as possible!


*Luckily*, the pen label wasn't lying, and after a few more squirts to soak the fabric, the writing did go away, phew!


Maybe someday, I'll even dare use the pen on white fabric :)

3 comments:

Lane said...

I've never had a problem getting water soluble ink out with one exception. If you hit it with the iron, it is permanent. Other than that, it goes away with a few squirts, which I apply as soon as possible after using the ink. Wish I could say as much about blue chalk marker. Talk about something permanent! Lane

Cristin said...

I hear you! I have a disappearing pen AND a "water soluble" pen. Both do just what they say... I tend to go for the water soluble pen (its blue) and just dab with a wet towel... and POOF its gone!

Joan said...

Your post did make me smile...I have had a few experiences like that... not good for the nerves :)