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Sunday, March 24, 2013

Mark B Gone is not so gone

This is my off the wall design wall post and is linked to Connie's freemotion by the river linky party Tuesday.  I had another learning experience recently and I'm trying to salvage what might have been a pretty quilt.  This is the what unexpectedly happened when I went to use a popular marking pen.  I had this quilt on the frame and I used a Mark B Gone pen in several places just for basic registration marks for the quilting.  The whole edge of the quilt was marked and then quilted.  Then I sprayed it with water and it seemed that all the marks were disappearing, but to my amazement and dissappointment, the marks came back on the dark pink as you see in the picture.  I used a chalk line for the rest of the quilting and hurried to finish.  As soon as I was able to get it off the frame I went on the computer to find out if anyone had any "magic" to get rid of these dark greyish colored lines.  I tried the blue line eraser.  Someone suggested vinegar and so I tried that.  No luck getting it out.  I then washed the entire quilt in cold water and draped it over a counter to air dry.  The lines were just as dark as ever.  I showed it to several quilter friends who tried to convince me that it didn't really look that bad.  It was suggested that I do the other edge the same and so I put more blue lines on and sprayed it.  This was intended to make it look like I did this on purpose.  You can see in the picture where I drew more lines on, then I sprayed it and it appears to be disappearing.




In the next picture it is still damp and here comes the lines.  I used the marker in several different places on the different fabrics in surrounding areas.  It came out of all the other fabrics. It's a good thing this is my quilt.  I can't imagine what I would do if this ever happened to a customers quilt.  I will never use one of these markers again unless I am able to check to make sure it will come out and I will wait until it is totally dry to make sure it does not come back!
The picture on the left was taken of a corner that had never been marked, but had been washed in cold water and air dried.  The other pictures are of the same corner after marking.
I am still sick about the blue lines that I could not remove from this quilt, but many of my quilting friends told me that it's not a problem and said things like "it looks like it's supposed to be that way".  I think our quilting friends are just incapable of saying mean things about our quilts.  It does look better outdoors (and farther away).  sigh........ 
 
 

4 comments:

  1. Oh no.... a friend of mine had the same issue with her first quilt.... she has not used it since.

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  2. I have used this type of pen, but not this brand. Scary. It is a good thing it was your quilt. Thanks for the warning. I will do more testing of fabrics in the future!

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  3. I've said more than once that if someone could invent a fabric pen that would mark all colors easily and be erased easily they would make a million dollars. I stop using chemical pens just for the reason that happen to you - also - I'm not convinced that its good for any quilt I want to keep around for longer than a generation. Lately I've gone back to 5mm or smaller mechanical pencil -- sighhhh

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  4. I haven't used this type of pen and now I don't think I want to. Your quilt is beautiful, sorry this happened! Thanks for sharing.
    Freemotion by the River Linky Party Tuesday

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