Quilts and Fabric Markers–Project Updates!

So many project updates.  I’ve been a busy beaver this week!

Pink and Teal Quilt

I’m quilting again, which I’ve missed.  Quilting (to me) is kind of like painting but less messy.  I absolutely despise picking out fabric.  #1 I want to take EVERYTHING home with me, and #2 because I’m an absolute perfectionist about picking out fabric.  It all has to go together.

Teal and Blue Quilt

And by go together, I mean that the colors have to work together and the patterns.  You cant have five seriously busy patterns and then one that isn’t.  I like varying the degrees of the patterns, picking one favorite and basing the rest off of that.  Thus it takes forever.

I have a “boy” quilt and a “girl” quilt started (I’m going to use that very loosely…to me neither one looks particularly gendered…also, my boy students all love pink…so…what’s the point?)…they’re going pretty quick.  I also have cats…they’re very…helpful…

Cat on a Quilt

Pele would like everyone to know that he absolutely DID NOT walk all over the pieces I laid out and mess up my layout.  He helped me artistically rearrange them.  Because that’s the kind of cat he is.  Helpful, through and through.

Colore Fabric Markers

I was also supremely delighted to get a new set of fabric markers in the mail.  I LOVE THEM.  THEY WORK SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE TULIP ONES!!!!!  Yes, I just scream/typed.  Because I am that excited.  I love you Colore markers.  You are da bomb.

Colored in Fabric

You can see a little comparison between Tulip vs Colore.  The wishy-washy colors are Tulip, the bright ones are Colore.  I intentionally recolored half of the red/purple lolipop with Colore markers so that you could see the difference.  Crazy right?  As I was playing with them I realized that I could use the two types of markers together to create shading/watercolor effects/etc. but if you only want to buy one set of markers, don’t even bother with the Tulips.  Just get the Colore’s.

The Colore Fabric Markers bleed less, plus they have a lovely super saturated color.  The only downside is that you really need to put paper or something under the fabric as you color, because they will bleed through to the table.  Everything I’m making with my coloring fabric will be interfaced and probably have a layer of batting behind it as well, so I’m not too worried about that, but if you were to color a t-shirt with them it would absolutely matter.

So…that’s all the project updates I have for today, BUT (yes, that’s a big but–and I did just giggle a little bit over that…I made a butt joke!) I’m going to post an update later in the week with a few more creations for the craft fair…they’re coming along nicely!

Tulip Fabric Markers–Worth it?

DragonCon is over…AWA is yet to come…and I no longer have a pressing cosplay to finish (unless you count Megumi from Food Wars…but I’m not going to call that pressing), which means back to making things for Holly Days!  They officially accepted me last week, so it’s really going to happen! (November 10-11, mark your calendars!)

Tulip Fabric Markers

Instead of stressing out, I’m trying to figure out all the bits and pieces I’m going to need to bring with me, and I need fabric markers if I’m going to make stuff out of coloring fabric.

These are Tulip, and I’m regretting not buying the dual tip ones.  This pack was $20 for 20 markers (at Joanns, I used a coupon), but the dual tip ones come with 14 colors for the same price.  I thought more colors would be a better deal.  I may have changed my mind.

Candy Fabric Colored in

As you can see, they bleed–my mom and I colored around the edges of my test strip.  Once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t so much of a problem, but certain colors (like blue) bled more than others and I really had to remind myself not to color too close to the lines.

Red and Purple Lolipop

I also felt that the color was a bit too wishy washy.  I got over it after a while and pretended it was watercolor–but then I discovered that you can layer them!  Please keep in mind that you still have the bleeding problem, but it is possible to make the color stronger.  The purple and red lolipop on the left is probably my best example of this.  The light red and purple are before, the dark red and purple are from the second layer.

You can also layer different shades together to make a better color.  The half of a green lolipop in the middle/bottom was closer to the light  green of the candies on the right.  I then layered neon over the “dark green” and voila!  An actual, honest to goodness, saturated color.

I’m going to keep playing with it.  I’ll probably end up buying the dual tips to test out the fine points (they have really thin points on the dual tips), because I feel like the markers do what I want them to do.  Just not perfectly.  And if I’m going to bring some to my booth to sell, I want to make sure I’m bringing something I would use myself, that I can instruct someone else on how to use.

I’ll be trying out the “Colore Premium Fabric Markers” 20 pack in a few days–more reviewers claiming that they don’t bleed.  I hope I like them better!

Visit my Etsy shop here to buy a downloadable PDF of Coloring Bookmarks Eat Sweets! (The candy pattern on the bookmark)

I’m slowly but surely putting my DragonCon pics up on Instagram ( scribblerex ), so follow me! (And let me know who you are, if I know you!)