Guitar Strip Quilt

Oh, this quilt.  What a saga.

 

I only had a little bit of that guitar print (Michael Miller), but it was calling out to me to be used in a quilt for this fair.  So I started picking fabrics from my collection that would go with it and compliment it, and it came together beautifully.  Perfectly for a little boy!  It looked AWESOME and I knew it would sell, either at the fair, or in my shop.  I put folded it and put it on my table next to my sewing stuff to get binding in the morning.  Unfortunately and unbeknownst to me, someone soon put a highlighter on it… uncapped.

In the morning when I went to work on it again, I saw a good 2” circle of neon yellow highlighter right in the middle of one of the chevron strips on the front.  GAH!!  I researched and discovered that highlighter is water-based, and should come out with a little soap and a lot of water.  Yay!  So, first I put binding on, and then  as I ran water directly over the spot, it was coming out, easily.  The water was bright yellow, but the stain was washing away from the chevron print.  After I it was gone, I turned the quilt over to make sure it had all come out.

That 2” spot had grown to be at least a foot wide, and left little yellow drip babies all over.

Bright yellow.

All over the back.

And it wouldn’t wash out anymore like it did on the front!  (in case you are wondering, the front chevron is Riley Blake, the back is Moda) I was panicked.  All that time!  Material!  MONEY!

So I worked on it some more, and some more, and some more.  I used baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, water and soap… nothing was working at all!  So, I put some Dawn dish soap on it, and for good measure, some shampoo.

VOILA!

No more yellow.

However, the dish soap left little blue spots on it, very subtly, but they were still there, even after two more washes.  And since this poor quilt had been washed so many times already (though it was now super soft and cuddly and made me want to wash all my quilts before I had them on display for people to see), I decided to call it good.  The blue would fade a little more after each wash, so eventually it will be gone.  After asking several opinions (where most people couldn’t even see the blue), I decided to have it at the craft fair, but to discount it.  And it sold, like I knew it would, despite the little flaws.  It was crazy. 

That highlighter is now in some landfill, somewhere.

Well, that’s all the quilts I had!  WHEW!  I did make up this quick hand-painted sign for our booth, and I thought it was kind of cute so I wanted to share.  I was going to do vinyl, but I’m so cheap I couldn’t get myself to do that, so I opted for hand drawing, and hand painting, the sign to look something like chalk board art.  Granted, it is blue on a white background, but it got the message across! 

After doing this, I realized how awesome this sort of thing could be in my home, if I used rulers/grids and a paint pen instead of a regular paint brush.  I haven’t seen a chisel-style paint pen yet, but that would be awesome.  I must try it again with a real chalkboard background!

Have a great Veterans Day Weekend! Thanks to our armed forces for helping our country maintain its liberty, safety, and pride.