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Marking a quilt with painters tape?


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This sounds possibly insane, because I know about adhesive and fabric etc. but I will try to ask anyways.

  I have a king size quilt top that I am custom quilting/freehand.   It will have a large freehand stitched spruce tree on it (think about 70-80'' tall and about 40'' wide)    I've got the area pinned off and the wash out marking pen that I am using doesn't show up very well.   Can I mark the boundaries with painters tape, and perhaps a few guidelines with painters tape?  If it is on there for 2-3 days?     Or has anyone had luck with crayola washout markers?     I'm doing it mostly on white fabrics, a bit of cream so I am nervous to mark anything.      I don't need lots of detailed marking -  just the skeleton of the tree.    :huh:

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This doesn't answer your question (cuz I don't know the answer), but

 

When the gal came and set up my longarm, she showed me how to use Glad's Press and Seal to "transfer" a design to the quilt. Simply draw it out on the Press and Seal, and press that onto the quilt. Then stitch. I had a heck of a time getting all the little pieces of the Press and Seal out of the quilt when I tried this on my own, but maybe that was my dumb luck. To anyone that wants to try this method, I'd suggest practicing it first!

 

I don't know if this would work for you, but that idea just popped into my head out of nowhere ...

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I've used the blue painters tape and never had any problems.  The marking pens that I absolutely love are Frixion pens.  The ink comes in a wide variety of colors (pink, orange, green, blue, black, red, purple) and the marks are vibrant on medium to light colored fabrics.  They also have highlighters that are great!  Love them.  The best thing about the Frixion pens is that the ink will stay as long as you need it to and when you want to remove it, just hit it with a hot iron.  Poof!  The marks are gone.  I don't overload the lines with ink just to make sure it all comes out easily because I've heard (although never tried it) that if you put your quilt in very very cold climates (such as a freezer) if the ink is loaded in too heavily, it will come back.  No worries, just hit it with an iron again and it goes away.  ..... BTW who puts their quilts in the freezer? :blink:

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I don't see blue painters tape causing any residue...I've used it a million times on quilts and on my leaders...it isn't THAT tacky really...you might want to make sure it's even sticky enough!  :)  You could test it on some scrap fabric and let it sit a few days...but I'd be more apt to leave painters tape on for a few days than even blue water soluble marker!  It's really the only kind of marking pen I'll use, but I'm super careful with it and how I remove it.

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CAUTION  Using frixion pen the heat does make it dissapear but after it gets cold or is WASHED some marks come back. I think this is fine if it is your own quilt but if it is a customers quilt and the marks that reappear  will not be so good. Just my opinion 

I have used freezer paper on fabric and it does not seam to leave a make not sure if you were to cut thin strips and iron to the background if it would work for your application

good luck

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I'm going to ditto Terry's caution about the Frixion pens. Do not use them on customer quilts unless you're sure your customer isn't going to ship them to a show or as gifts to far away relatives. Cold in the hold of an airplane or on a truck going across the mountains will make the marks return. Washing doesn't necessarily take out the marks so they don't come back, and a test done a couple of years ago by members of this forum showed that depending on the color fabric and if it was a solid or print, after removal there is a faint "chemical trail" that showed when viewed from an angle.

 

I worked at intake for a quilt show and an entry from Colorado had marks all over it. The owner had pinned a note to the quilt asking that if the marks were visible maybe "someone" could iron them off for her. The quilt was hung as-is since no one at a show has time for that nor would I want to be responsible for touching someone's quilt with a iron.  :blink:

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Painters tape will not leave a residue on the fabric. I have found it comes off on its own after a couple days. It is a low tack tape, I've never had a problem getting it off even after painting unless the paint has totally cured and then it still comes off except where it is sealed in paint.

Shirley.

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I stay away from Frixion pens, I really do not want to chance it after hearing about the show quilt incident. Used it once on my own quilt. I've been using blue painters tape for a long time especially when I am teaching Piecing, to label blocks & rows, I press it lightly with warm iron, sticks well until you are ready to remove it, no residue, no problem @ all so far.

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