Jen (mrseldoo) asked us what we thought she could use to mark solid black fabric.href> There were many good suggestions, but Jen's question prompted me to run a test using a particular gel pen brand, since I have always been wondering, myself.

Here is how I conducted the test:

* I selected a piece of solid navy blue fabric from my scrap basket.

* I used my most sparkly gel pen to draw some lines. The reason I chose a sparkly pen is because I thought that SPARKLES would better show on a dark fabric that an opaque pen, as with the white gel pen mentioned in the other thread.

* The lines you will see in the photo were not drawn with one pass. It took two or three passes to draw each line. Just for fun, I also wrote the word "Shiny," to see how the pen works when drawing curves. Again, these letters were written using several passes. The ball simply won't roll as well on fabric as it does on paper.

* I let the sample sit overnight. That's about 9 hours.

* In the morning, I took my first photograph, then held the sample under running cold water. I did not rub or agitate in any way. After a few seconds under the running water, I looked at the sample. Already, most of the sparkles were gone. I put the sample back into the water for a few more seconds. I estimate that the total rinsing time was about ten seconds. I blotted the sample with a towel, then took a second photograph.

Here is the sample before rinsing:

{{!gwi}}

Here is the sample after rinsing:

{{!gwi}}

There were a few remaining sparkles, but this might only be a problem if you are going to put the quilt in a show and you think the judge won't like seeing a few sparkles. I believe that a trip through the washing machine on a gentle cycle should eliminate virtually all remaining sparkles.

Here is the brand of pen I used. I chose this brand and style because it is the most sparkly of all the gel pens I have.

{{!gwi}}

If you look very carefully at the first photo, you can see three vertical lines, then to the right of those, a fainter line. That was drawn with another sparkly gel pen. It obviously is not as sparkly as the Gelly Roll brand, even after three passes.

I do not think three passes are necessary. I only did that to be sure that the lines would show up in the photos. You might only need a faint suggestion of a line when hand piecing, or for hand or machine quilting. So in actual use, I think you wouldn't need to apply as much sparkly ink as I did for this test.

Conclusion: I would feel safe using the Gelly Roll pens to mark on dark fabrics. Of course, with any pen or marking method, test on scraps of your own materials first, do not allow your project to be exposed to the heat of an iron, hot car, or direct sunlight, and be sure to get the markings back...