Water-soluble fabric marker: are you making this mistake when you use it?

I think the issue of transferring patterns and designs to fabric is one of the most important ones that have to be addressed time after time, no matter how seasoned the stitcher is. Because a successful/not so successful/disastrous transferring will inevitably influence the final result of your embroidery. And none of us wants our efforts to go to waste, right? So, today I'd like to speak about one of the most popular choices for transferring embroidery designs to the fabric: water-soluble markers.

These pens have appeared on the market a long time ago and have since earned love of many stitchers and hate of many other stitchers. I belong to the first group, but I also understand the frustration that the second group has gone through – because I, myself, had sad experiences with washable markers. But now I know that the problem was not in the marker itself, but in my wrong way of using it! In this post I'm going to share my mistake, tell you how I came to realize it and how to fix it.

What is a water-soluble fabric marker?

Water soluble fabric marker is a tool designed specifically for marking the fabric – be it lines for quilting projects, clothes patterns or some intricate embroidery designs. The markers, which look like a regular pen on the outside, use a non permanent ink, normally of a blue color, which can be removed with water when needed. Some markers have two sides: one creates a thicker line, the other one creates a finer one.

THE PROS: Because the inks are not permanent, it gives you more freedom in embroidery. You can slightly change the lines, shapes, and make any other tweaks in your embroidery. You also don't need to fear if your stitching didn't cover the marker lines completely, because they will wash away anyway. Which is not the case with the permanent inks.

THE CONS: These markers can be used on medium or light colored fabrics, but not on the darker ones. Also, you have to wash your embroidery to remove the inks, which is not recommended for the wool and silk embroidery and can be dangerous when using hand-dyed fabrics and thread. Also, if not washed properly, the inks may come back.

How to wash away the marker correctly?

Now, this one is a VERY important thing! So, please, pay attention.

The inks will NOT wash away completely if you:

• just rub it with a wet cotton swab or even with a wet cloth,
• put it under running tap water for a bit,
• apply water only on a part of the pattern/fabric,
• spray it with water from a bottle.

In all of the cases above the inks will most likely REAPPEAR and maybe even in a new place. And it will ruin your mood and will serve as a huge frustration, because the embroidery you've been working on so hard has just been spoiled to the bits.

Sad, isn't it?

I've had this problem. I know how it feels. But the problem can be fixed. First of all, by washing your embroidery the correct way from the very start. Secondly, even if you already made a mistake and the inks have reappeared, you can still remove them by washing it again – the correct way. I'm not promising some miracles – I'm only telling about what has worked for me.

So, what is the CORRECT way of washing away the marker?

Take a clean bowl and fill it with a room-tempreture water (I actually like my water to be not very cold, just on the border to lukewarm, because I can't stand cold water). Add a modest portion of a mild soap or dishwashing liquid. Put the whole of your embroidered piece in the bowl and let it soak for a while. Be generous with the time – let it soak well. Rinse it gently, so that the soap gets into the fabric. Then dump out the soapy water from the bowl and run the cold water from the tap. Rinse your fabric gently under the running water until you are sure that there are no traces of soap left.

That's it. Now you can leave your embroidery to air dry. In the post on how to wash embroidery I already described the process in more details (including the test on the dye bleeding, which is also important to do).

So the two main ingredients for washing away the marker inks are: soaking the whole of the piece and a mild detergent.

It's not surprising that many of us make mistakes here, because the brands don't provide profound instructions on how to remove the inks of their wash-away pens the right way. At least I didn't find anything.

The positive thing is that if the first attempt of washing the marker away failed, you can try again.

Precautions

Now, when the general questions are answered, let's take a look at the DOs and DON'Ts regarding the washable fabric pens.

1. Consider the choice of fabric and thread before using a water-soluble marker! It is not recommended to wash wool embroidery, silk embroidery and also you should be cautious of washing dyed fabric or thread. If you are using any of that, think of an alternative way to transfer embroidery designs, for example, iron-on pencils.

2. When buying a new marker search for the one that makes a crisp thin line. Also, it is better to stick to well-known brands.

3. With every new marker run a test: draw something on a small piece of waste fabric and then wash it as described above. There can be defective markers, after all. 

4. Don't iron your embroidery before you wash away the inks and let the piece air dry.

Personal insight

As to my own experience, I can tell a couple stories.

One time after I finished embroidering one of the pieces I washed it well and the marker's line disappeared. Everything was fine, but I decided to add beads to that piece, and to have a better idea of where to place them, I put tiny dots with the marker. After the thing was done, I rubbed the dots with a cotton swab. After all, they were just tiny dots?? But no, the inks reappeared after the fabric dried out.

There was also another piece, which I was reluctant to wash because I used hand-dyed ribbons there. So I decided to wet it with a spray bottle. As you may guess, this didn't wet the whole of the fabric, but only the embroidered part and even this part wasn't wet completely. As a result, the inks reappeared the next day – in the corner of my embroidery. Right on the place where the “wet part” bordered on the “dry part” the day before. It looked very ugly. Still reluctant to wash it, I sprayed water over it again and again. But the inks kept coming back. I didn't give up though, I kept persisting and spraying until the whole fabric was dripping wet – the same way as if you would soak it in a bowl. Only after that have the inks disappeared for good. To cut it short, I could've just soaked it from the very beginning. There wasn't any problem with the dyed ribbons either. 

There were a couple more failures I went through, but all of them are tied with the fact: whenever I washed my embroidery the correct way, by soaking it completely and applying some kind of a mild detergent, the inks were removed perfectly. Whenever I did any of the mistakes and “Don'ts” listed above, problems happened.

What about you? Do you use washable fabric pens? Have you experienced any problems connected with it?