QUILTERS BEWARE!

Thought this sounded like something all quilters should know about........not a good thing to use, I'm afraid! Below is an email from a friend who thought I'd like to share this with my bloggers...........B

This email came from a friend of mine who took a quilt cruise with Carol Doak.
Some of you may have heard about this pen. You may not want to use it.

This email was on our chat forum from the Carol Doak foundation cruise group. Feel free to mail it to other quilters.
Too good to be true; I'm glad someone tested it, even through the washing process. It sure could ruin a quilt!
Sidney Smith
My fellow teacher Charlotte Anderson shared this bit of info and I know this pen was discussed recently on the cruise.

I thought I'd give you all a heads up about Frixion Erasable pens. A student showed me hers at Road to California in January. She drew a line, thin but quite black, and then ironed it and the line totally disappeared. It looked like the coolest thing ever!

So I went in search of these pens, which you can get a Staples. I bought the pack that has three colors in it - black, red and blue. Being quite the skeptic about things that are too good to be true, I read the back of the package. In small print it says: "Do not expose to extreme temperatures (<14degrees F;> 140 degrees F). If pen is exposed to temperature that reaches 140 degrees F the ink will be colorless when writing. To restore color, cool to at least 14 degrees F and the ink will again write in color."

Aha! I said to myself. If you iron the ink it's going to be way over 140 degrees so it's going to disappear. So I took some fabric and scribbled on it with all three colors. Then I ironed it and, sure enough, all the scribbles disappeared. But then I put it in the freezer for about 10 minutes and all the lines reappeared. I left it for about a week and a half while I went travelling and today I tried to wash the ink out. It didn't come out with soap and hard scrubbing and not even after I put rubbing alchohol on it. So then I ironed the piece dry and all the lines disappeared and then it went back to the freezer and all the lines reappeared (perhaps just a bit fainter).

This experiment was enough to persuade me that these pens are too good to be true and even sort of creepy - the ink is always there even if you can't see it. I wouldn't use them on any fabric or quilt you really cared about.

If I had a blog I would have put this on there but since I don't any of you who want to pass on what I've written can feel free to copy and paste this post.