Wednesday, October 29, 2008

About the Sharpie ultra-fine point

While working on the "drawing shapes" tutorial I decided to check in with Sanford to make sure about the pack of multi-colors in the ultra-fine point Sharpie. It is not the "Permanent type," but says "permanent on most surfaces" - which would make me afraid to use it on anything that would subsequently be wet blocked, steam blocked, or dry cleaned. I have seen too many disasters over the years in needlepoint to trust anything but the one that says PERMANENT on it. This one does only come in red, blue, black, and green, for which I have no use in my commercial needlepoint designing - so I'll just stick to the black. I keep hoping for a nice gray one, and a white one for marking on black canvas.

The problem for the pens that are not totally permanent is that after zillions of hours stitching, not to speak of the cost of a painted canvas from a "reputable" designer - (I have seen this happen) when the blocking or later dry cleaning is done, the ink will lift to the surface and totally ruin the piece of needlepoint. Soooooo be careful. I intend to go ahead and buy the colored pens, however, as I do a lot of marking on the little ornaments I design, but don't paint when they are just for me. This will greatly increase the ease of stitching them! Also - the dilemma I've had personally of the black wanting to show through light colored threads.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Judy,

    Thanks for the update on the pens!

    Cynthia
    Windy Meadow

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  2. I have now tested these things - every color with everything wet I could think of - and rubbed the canvas, and the ink won't budge - they are totally safe for use on needlepoint canvas. These multi-colored ones are new for Sanford. I have used the older, "extra fine point" too, and they are totally colorfast and impervious to water and dry-cleaning.

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