This past Saturday was the last of 7 sessions for the Calgary Public
Library using Sharpie Markers™ and
rubbing alcohol to create a lot of interesting patterns. Our original project,
a cotton scarf, often morphed into just having a lot of fun making marks
on the 100% cotton fabric and adding 99% alcohol with an eye dropper to see how
the Sharpie pigments moved.
Let me tell you about our 2 main supplies – we did use Sharpie™ Markers for this project, but any alcohol based
marker will work. Bic Markit™, Copic™ and Spectrum
Noir™ are others that you can use. Sharpies™ and the Bic Markit™ alcohol
markers can often be found on sale at Staples here in Canada.
The second ingredient is rubbing
alcohol, and if you read our post in June of this year you may remember
that rubbing alcohol comes in three main strengths, 70%, 90% and 99%. We used
the 99% for this project and used an eye dropper to drop it onto the marker
ink. Rubbing alcohol (perhaps due to its therapeutic use) also has an expiry date,
so it’s probably wise to buy a fresh bottle for this project. Costco here in
Canada has the best price and does sell the 99%, where many pharmacies do not.
The rubbing alcohol pushes the marker pigment concentrically away
from the drop location so you can experiment with where you are making your
alcohol drops for different effects. If you want to repeat a motif, it’s not a
bad idea to do a sample piece with your motif before and after dropping the alcohol
so that you remember how you made it.
Other supplies needed are 100% cotton, an eye dropper, a table
covering and a good supply of fresh air!
We also did this project at our June FOG group on silk scarves, so
visit that posting if you want to know more about doing this process on silk.
Although many finished a scarf during the session, we only had the
pleasure of seeing one of our participants wearing her creation as she brought
the finished piece to another session. As you can see from the photo below, she
folded the 54” piece of cotton in half lengthwise, sewed around it, right sides
together and then turned it right side out. She then did a beaded fringe on one
end only and lovely beading up the seam side. Folding it gave it a nice feel
and the beaded fringe some nice weight.
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| Carleen's finished Scarf with beaded fringe |
What follows are some awesome examples of motifs that our
participants came up with.
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In each pair, the motif before the alcohol was dropped is on the left,
after the alcohol was dropped is on the right
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In each pair, the motif before the alcohol was dropped is on the left,
after the alcohol was dropped is on the right. In the bottom example,
the drawing was enhanced with black marker lines after the alcohol was dropped.
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In each pair, the motif before the alcohol was dropped is on the left,
after the alcohol was dropped is on the right.
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Other uses for the decorated cotton could be quilt blocks or small
fringed pieces for the fronts of cards.
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| Joan's southwest sunset. |
Once all the decoration is completed,
let your cotton dry thoroughly overnight and then heat set with your iron set
on the cotton setting. Once heat set, they are washable and the colours will
not run.
