The Many Uses of a Quilting Pen

Quilting Pens Are Used for More Than Just Quilting

When I first bought a quilting pen about six years ago, I thought it would be just for quilting. Since then, I've used my quilting pen for many other artistic and crafty jobs besides quilting.

What is a quilting pen? It's a pen (usually with blue or purple ink) used for marking on fabrics. Besides quilting, quilting pens have been used for years by both amateur and professional tailors---or anyone else who works with fabrics.

Quilting pens come in several different forms. For example, there are pens, such as the Dritz Marking Pen and Marks-B-Gone Disappearing Ink pen (see photo) where the ink marks disappear after a few days. Beside making quilting pens in blue and purple ink, Dritz (as well as other companies) also offers pens in white for marking on dark fabrics. You can also buy fabric-marking pens that are dissoluble in water.

If you quilt, you know how valuable these pens are to mark your fabric for quilting. You can use them not only to design your quilts, but for the actual quilting design, as well. They're also a must-needed item for working in other crafts, as well as the fine arts. Here are a few good uses that I've found for a quilting pen....

*Cross stitching

If it weren't for quilting pens, I would have given up on learning to cross stitch years ago. Forever loosing my place, I used to get frustrated with my cross-stitch projects and never complete even one. Then I discovered "gridding". Gridding is simply marking your fabric by matching your pattern as you section your fabric into 10 x 10 squares. Although many stitchers use thread to grid, I've done most of my cross stitch projects using a water-soluble quilting pen. You can either mark up the entire fabric or do it 10 x 10 square by 10 x 10 square at a time. However, I'd recommend doing the latter, as it's easier to catch mistakes than if you grid the entire fabric before stitching.

*Painting in oils and acrylics--