A couple of ladies in my quilt guild connected me to a local choir when I was looking for a fun and relaxed little choir to join, now I've met the sister of one of the choral singers, and said sister used to be president of my quilt guild.
I mentioned to her that I was interested in trying some plastic stencils for hand-quilting borders and two days later, she loaned me some - great! I didn't want to spend 10$ on a stencil (that's what they cost at the local stores) without ever having tried one, so this works out wonderfully.
I tried one right away on the border of the Wonderland Irish Chain baby quilt:
See the double winding braid on the blue border?
For the center of the quilt, I'm just outlinging white spaces about 1/4" in from the seams right now. About 1/4" because I'm just eye-balling :)
If the border stencil works out, I'll try a center piece stencil for the white space, or maybe something free-hand. I'm loath to mark the white area though, as I haven't tested my chalk, chalk pencils and marking pens on light coloured fabrics yet... It's just like washing a quilt for the first time ever, and I just am not really the 'testing' kind of person... I also don't test cremes etc on an "inconspicuous area" first, just lather it on and hope for the best or have a funny story to tell a few years down the road.
But seeing how many hours I've spent quilting this quilt already (that's about 1 hour's worth of border you see up there!!), I don't want to ruin it by using a bad fabric marker, so I guess I can take some fabric, mark it and see if the marker comes off again... sigh. So out of my element!
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6 comments:
be very careful...i am usually a fan of the marking pens but i had marked some things out on a gift and on some of the light blocks it never came out....bummer!!! this border quilting you did with the stencil is so pretty
Very pretty stencil. I've been using the pencil I bought from the store for my markings and sometimes just a regular pencil but they won't show on the quilting, yeah be careful.
The only marking tool I have ever used that was a HUGE struggle to get out was pencil lead. For white I use the blue water soluable pens, however, you must rinse it out thoroughly before you wash it with detergent.
Crispy
Heat is the only thing I've found that will set the blue markers. So, I'm very careful, to the point of not letting a marked quilt sit under the hot light bulb of my sewing machine for long and never getting near it with an iron. Have never had trouble getting it out. Graphite pencil will come out with a paste made of oxyclean and shout and rubbed in with a soft toothbrush. Lovely quilt. So simple and yet the colors are very sophisticated, especially that striking blue border. Lane
I do not like to mark my quilts either, which of course can be a problem if you want to make a design. I like to use the masking tape kind if I am just making straight line borders. But then again, you can do that with your machine.
I've had good luck with the blue markers before on white fabric. They usually start erasing before I can finish quilting :)
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