Friday, August 19, 2011

WARNING WARNING WARNING

If you have recently heard about these wonderful Frixion pens that are suppose to disappear when touched with an iron, think again...One of my quilting board friends decided to take the pen to task....here is her results:

"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."

So please be aware they seem great until the above was discovered....If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, just google it..They can be found at Stables....



7 comments:

  1. I still use them but I do test them on all fabrics. They seem to bleach out some batiks and the orange and pink colors (yes they have 8 colors) don't seem to come out well at all. I have never had a problem with the black and blue. I don't plan on freezing my quilts so the lines coming back shouldn't be a problem with me.

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  2. true enough, one doesn't think about freezing a quilt lol, but for me it makes me really nervous so will stick with what I know works...

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  3. Thanks for the info. I don't think it's about freezing the quilt as such but proving that the ink is still present and could be damaging your quilt!

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  4. Hi Brenda, I just bought the pens even though I know they don't disappear forever!! They make such a nice clean fine line that I will use them for drawing templates and small markings within the seam. I chuckled about the freezer, just visualized hanging out my quilt here in SK to freshen it up and it comes back full of quilting markings. LOL I live in Swift Current

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  5. I used one to mark a quilting line on top of a table runner and left it in the basement while finishing it off, and the lines came back. I live in Canada so it wasn't surprising since we do get very cold temperatures - but this happened in spring!!!

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  6. Thanks for the info..I have been hearing this very same info from others. BTW, I'm so happy to have you as one of my new followers at grandmamas Stories. How did you find me? I always like to ask.
    Hope you'll keep coming back. I will be late posting on Monday due to taking #1 Husband for an MRI
    Blessings
    Gmama Jane

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  7. My question is how often do you freeze your quilts? Plus you can just re-iron them off if they happen to fall unnoticed in your freezer. I love them and use them often.

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