The Quilt Skipper

quilting makes me skip for joy

Jenny K Lyon

Quilting makes me skip for joy

Update and follow-up on air erasable pens

 

This is an update to my previous post about air erasable pens. The project I am working on has a variety of silks, some of which have unstable dyes. Wetting that quilt is out of the question. My only choice was an air erasable marker. I won’t go into why other methods would not work on this project, why the Blue Line Eraser was not an option, etc. Trust me, air erasable was the only viable option.

I’ll be inserting random shots of the project I’m working on, just for grins:

My focus for the previous post was the longevity of the mark of the air erasable pen — how long it held before it disappeared. One of the most annoying things about air erasable pens is that you can invest your time in marking and then not be able to quilt your project until later. By then the marks may have disappeared. My previous post covered my thoughts on the longevity of the mark.

What I’m covering in this post are two things:

  1. Follow up on how long the marks lasted and if they were hard to remove from my project.
  2. Thinking more globally about air erasable pens – pros and cons of using, marking and removing.

The Made-in-China/Amazon cheapie ()ab0ve) marks definitely lasted the longest, almost too long. I went on vacation for a week after letting the marks sit for a week and the marks were still visible! Then I worried that they might not come out. After all, this was a no-name brand. The marks did indeed disappear, but it took about 25 days.

Since I was worried that the marks might not come out, I used an eraser made to remove air erasable markings on contact to make sure they would come out. They did. It did take more effort with the Amazon pens than any of the other brands.

The eraser is on the right. Good luck trying to find it by itself.

Two sources for the eraser-only pen come from Sewline and Quilters Select. Most other brands have the eraser on the other end of the marker. Since I have plenty of markers, I didn’t want that.

Sewline was the only brand of eraser I was able to readily find. The others did not have the eraser as a stand alone product. It was no small task to erase the marks. It took about as long to erase the marks as it did to mark them in the first place.

But another thing to consider, which my previous post did not address, is the mark itself. If the mark is too wide, your quilting may be wobbling within the width of that mark, and you won’t see that wobble until the mark goes away. I prefer and pretty much insist on a marker whose mark is just the right width: wide enough for my geriatric eyes to see, but not so wide that my quilting could wobble without me being able to detect it while quilting.

The best combination of visibility and width was the Sewline. The Sewline is the only air erasable marker that I found with a ball point tip. It is uber accurate, visible and skinny.

This is ironic because in my last post I called the Sewline the “loser”. The Sewline’s mark does indeed fade faster than any other by far. But, the Sewline marks go on very easily and give a very visible and crisp mark that is just the right width. If you consider all of that, the Sewline becomes a “winner.

Keep in mind that I did my testing in my home where my humidity level hovers around 45% in my air conditioned space. Your experience in your space could be different. A humid environment will cause the marks to fade faster.

My conclusions:

  • IF I am confident that I am going to be able to quilt that marked space soon after marking, I prefer the Sewline; the mark goes down so smoothly, leaves a crisp mark of the perfect width and disappears quickly without having to use an eraser.
  • IF there was any doubt in my mind about how fast I was going to be able to quilt that area, I would use any of the other readily available markers.
  • IF I really am worried about the marks disappearing before I quilt, the Amazon brand mark stayed for weeks. It’s a little wider, but not enough that I could have significant wobble in my quilting and not notice as I quilted.

There ya go, more information about air erasable markers than you thought you would ever need😊

I’ll be linking up:
Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday

 

Comments

  1. That’s exactly how I use my Sewline marker. It takes a little more planning, but I know it will come out and that is worth a little inconvenience. Thank you.

  2. Try Quilter’s Select markers, available through thequiltshow.com, and then have a stand alone eraser.

  3. Thanks for the follow up, Jenny! A clear, skinny line is a must for me on the rare occasion where I’m marking for free motion quilting, although I do remember “way back when” I was doing that SewCalGal FMQ challenge and one of the teachers had us using an air erasable marking pen for her (or his?) tutorial. I was all kinds of panicked when I realized my marked design was already disappearing AS I WAS QUILTING it! Don’t remember what brand of pen I was using but I’ve been leery of the air erasable pens ever since.

    • Oh wow, blast from the past – I did the SewCalGal FMQW challenge also! I don’t recall what brand of air erasable she used. I will probably almost always use one of the markers that lasts longer. I just don’t want surprises.

  4. Did you talk about the purple marker , white color on the outside?

    Is that stitching on the block donevy hand? It’s grand.

    • NOt sure if you meant the Dritz marker? If so, it held pretty well and disappeared completely. Nothing held longer than the cheap Amazon ones. Yes, hand stitching, which I so enjoyed!