Making decisions and dealing with setbacks.

[kimikosews]

Back to LJ for this post, as my current host seems to be having MySql issues so I have no main blog today. It's been acting oddly since yesterday, but hopefully the folks there will have it back up and running soon. I just hope I have a blog to return to. (Edit: main blog has returned ok

Comments

[unclrashid]

Have you considered that a gel pen designed for scrapbooking may contain chemicals or have a PH such that it could gradually damage the silk over the span of a couple months? Cotton, linen or synthetic I wouldn't worry about it, but I'd hate for you to do all that work and then have the organza dissolve along the marking line 6 months later.

Not saying it will happen, but it's not unknown for quilt fabric marked with "ordinary" inks to degrade from the inks. Takes a long time, usually. But silk is chemically more delicate than cotton, also.

[kimikosews]

The pen is marked as acid free, archival, and pH neutral. I will check some more, but the idea of using the white gel pen came from an embroidery article I read some months ago.

And thank you for your concern. That would indeed be very annoying, which is why I wanted to try a few different marking methods. While I know guoache works, it would take too long for prick & pounce then mark with water paint, although that may not take as long hmmmm... More things to think about. Thanks!

[unclrashid]

I don't scrapbook, so I didn't think it would be PH neutral, archival, etc, but it makes sense that it would be. Results would probably not be nearly so dire as I thought!

[kimikosews]

Some pens are not archival quality, and some markers that are supposed to disappear end up reappearing, so it is good to be concerned about their chemical make-up. I did hunt around and other than warnings about disappearing inks reappearing again, could not find any warnings about the pens causing problems with fabrics. I used a similar pen on my sample piece of a few months ago and no problems on that sample piece - another archival quality pen.

[viennabelle]

Let me check my stash of gold work thread. Is that the relatively fine thread? I also owe you another report from the stash, fwiw.

[kimikosews]

I've gone and ordered a twist that should work, won't know for sure till it gets here on Saturday. If not, I may look around some more, but I'm hoping this twisted cord I ordered will work. Thanks for your offer. :-)

[viennabelle]

Ok, what I have is 340 wire (2x), special tambour, 345 in silver wire--not a match, I'm afraid.

[viennabelle]

Though if you can sub with either, pm me your address and I'll shoot it out. Let me know asap, as I will be leaving about 4 to West VA. for Labor Day weekend (I can probably find a USPS, but I"ll have to take it with me to mail it).