Erasable pens.

 

 

This is a post from Charlotte Warr Anderson this morning and I am sharing her post with you.

 

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

Charlotte

Charlotte Warr Andersen

2 Comments Add yours

  1. Nola says:

    Thanks for passing on that info from Charlotte. As a teacher it is important to know what does and doesn’t work.xx

  2. Heather Watts says:

    I use the Frixion pens ALL the time. At the moment I am hand piecing and use the pen for marking the dots and the outside lines.
    The pen will disappear permanently if you wash your quilt when you have completed it.

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