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Transcript:

Caroline: Hello, and welcome to Love to Sew. I’m Caroline, the owner of Blackbird Fabrics.

Helen: And I’m Helen, the designer behind Helen’s Closet Patterns.

Caroline: We’re two sewing buds who love to sew our own clothes and want to encourage you on your sewing journey, too. Join us for today’s topic: marking tools.

Caroline: Helen!

Helen: Hi, Caroline. 

Caroline: How’s it going? 

Helen: It’s going well, thanks. How are you? 

Caroline: I am very good. I’m excited to be recording with you today. Nice to see your face.

Helen: Ah, same here. You know what? The week this episode comes out is my birthday week.

Caroline: No.

Helen: And I’m going to be turning 33. 

Caroline: Oh my gosh, that’s a nice number. 

Helen: It is a nice number. 

Caroline: A nice even number.

Helen: I’m quite excited about it.

Caroline: It’s actually an odd number, but it’s even in the numbers.

Helen: In Caroline’s world, that is an even number. It is a satisfying number and I’m, I’m pretty excited. My second pandemic birthday. So it’s not going to be terribly exciting, but, um, I’m sure we’ll do something nice. 

Caroline: Ah, happy birthday. 

Helen: Aw, thank you.

Caroline: I hope that Sam makes you a delicious meal.

Helen: Oh, you know it.

Caroline: And, I hope you like my present. 

Helen: Aw, all right. Wait, are you thinking about what you’re going to buy now?

Caroline: No, I totally already have a thing for you that I am sending. 

Helen: Oh my gosh. I have a hope and dream for what it is, but I’m not going to say it out loud lest I jinx it.

Caroline: Ok, perfect. Our poor listeners are going to be left in the dark for this. 

Helen: It’s true. You have to find out what it was on Patreon. You can join us over there at patreon.com/lovetosew. 

Caroline: Good point. Okay. Before we get into the show, we wanted to mention to you all that we are having a spring sale on our Love to Sew merch the week this episode comes out.

Helen: Yes. All of our t-shirts, tote bags, and enamel pins are on sale for 25% off until April 19th! And we’ve got our podcast logo available as a pin as well as our “Stitch Witch” t-shirts and our “You can Make anything” tote bags. We’ve also got shirts that say “I love to Sew” and so many other goodies! And I have to say, not to toot our own horns, but I’m gonna. But we were pretty serious about sourcing quality manufacturers for these products. And I’m still so happy with how the products turned out. Like, after six months of wearing my t-shirts every week, at least once a week, they still look brand new. Like the black is still really nice and dark, and the print is still really nice and crisp. And I don’t know, sometimes t-shirts just don’t wear that well, but these ones, I have to say, are wearing very well. 

Caroline: It’s so true. My t-shirts also look amazing, and I wear them all the time. I wear them to do pottery. I wear them to work, and I use my tote bags all the time. They’re so nice and heavyweight. They have this great side panel. They have room for everything. I bring them for all of my groceries all the time, so I’m always, like, repping Love to Sew when I go grocery shopping. They’ve really up to my tote bag game. 

Helen: Yeah, so since we’ve stopped having advertisements on the show, not sure if you noticed but we did, this shop and our Patreon are the best ways that you can support us and the show. So if you like to listen and you’ve learned from Love to Sew, consider snapping something up in the sale. I mean, it’s a win/win. You get something cute. We get something cute, your love and support. 

Caroline: I totally agree. You can check us out at lovetosewshop.com. That’s 25% off your order this week at lovetosewshop.com.

Helen: All right, Caroline, should we get into this episode? I mean, I know marking tools doesn’t sound that exciting, but mark my words, it is. 

Caroline: I love this. Yes. There are so many tools that you can use to mark your fabric. It can be kind of overwhelming to decide what’s best for you or best for a certain project.

Helen: Yes, and having the right marking tool for you can make a big difference in your sewing experience. So in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about all kinds of different marking tools and when to use them. 

Caroline: So, just in general, when do we need to use marking tools? 

Helen: Well, usually it’s to transfer information from the pattern to the fabric piece that you’ve just cut out. So that means things like darts, notches, pocket placements, button hole placements, or button placements, but you can go a little off script and mark whatever you need to. You could mark a grainline or a center front, if you have a hard time seeing it on a certain piece of fabric. You can mark the right side of your fabric, so you can tell it from the wrong side, once you’ve figured out which is which. And you can mark front and back pieces, if they look similar. So all this information can prevent a lot of seam ripping and frustration later on. 

Caroline: And before we begin sharing tools, we want to share the most important piece of advice we have on this topic. And that is: always test first! The risk with marking tools is that you don’t always know, at first, how they’re going to interact with your fabric. So, test your marking tool of choice on a scrap of your garment fabric before you make marks on your cut out pieces. And if you test first, then you can be sure that you’re not going to be left with marks on a garment you worked really hard to make. So taking that few minutes is totally worth it, and do it every time you have a new fabric because different marking tools will react differently depending on the fiber content, the weave. So just always, always test. Always test. 

Helen: Caroline, do you always test your marking tools on your fabric?

Caroline: Helen! That’s not the point. That’s besides the point.

Helen: No, you know what? This has happened to me. I used a blue chaco liner on a white linen button up shirt. And yes, it was a bit foolish. I know what you’re thinking, but I did it anyway because I haven’t had very many issues with my chaco liners. I kind of use them willy-nilly. So I used them on this white linen button up shirt to mark my button hole placement, and it left a blue residue under the button holes. Even, like, after washing, I could still see, there was a slight blue tinge. It wasn’t too serious, but I knew it was there, and it was really bugging me. So after all that hard work, I should’ve been more careful and not rushed those final steps and not used blue on white. 

Caroline: Yeah, I mean, it seems obvious now. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, but I think that it happens to the best of us. Luckily, it has not happened to me, but I’ve seen it happen. And I remember this shirt that you’re talking about, and it’s so heartbreaking which is why, Helen, it’s key to test on your fabric. Do as I say, not as I do. I feel like I’ve said that way too much on this podcast, but it’s true. 

Helen: Just a little bit, but that’s okay. Okay, now that we’ve talked a little more, generally, let’s get into the nitty gritty and talk about specific tools. We’re going to start with a big category in marking tools, and that is chalk and waxed based tools. So the first on our list is the most classic of marking tools: tailor’s chalk. 

Caroline: Yes, tailor’s chalk is a small, flat rectangle or triangle of chalk-like material that has narrow edges for marking. They’re also sometimes called tailor’s crayons. And tailor’s chalk can come in a lot of different colors. Most often you’ll see them in white, yellow, kind of, a rusty red, or a blue. And this is a really traditional tool. Although tailor’s chalk used to be made out of actual chalk which is soft and, kind of, like, a white, sort of, rock or soapstone, they now come in two basic formulations: clay-based and wax-based. 

Helen: Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about clay-based tailor’s chalk. It’s usually made of talc which is a clay material that’s often been used in baby powder or a titanium dioxide which is an important ingredient in mineral sunscreens, too. Clay-based tailor’s chalk can be brushed away after you don’t need the mark anymore which is great for avoiding permanent marks. However, if you’re not careful, the chalk can fade or disappear if you handle the fabric too much. You know, sometimes you make a mark to mark a dart, and then when you get to the step to sew that dart, the marking’s gone. Sometimes it just brushes away, and that’s really annoying.

Caroline: Yeah, definitely. Okay. What about wax-based tailor’s chalk? 

Helen: Yeah, so the advantage of wax-based tailor’s chalk is that the marks are bright and clear, but the disadvantage is that they’re difficult, or impossible, to remove from the fabric. So it makes sense to use wax-based tailor’s chalk if you’d like to trace a pattern piece onto fabric or make markings on the edges of a piece that are going to end up hidden inside your seam allowance or get trimmed away later.

Caroline: Yes, and something to keep in mind when using tailor’s chalk, is not to stretch out your fabric when making the markings. You might find it helpful to hold the fabric down on the table with your flat hand or a quilting ruler and mark right next to that, so you’re not, kind of, moving and warping the fabric as you mark. You want to use the flat edge of your tailor’s chalk for larger lines and marking around big pattern pieces and use the points for more precision markings.

Helen: Ooh, is that why they’re triangle-shaped? 

Caroline: Yeah, I mean, I’ve also seen, like, square-shaped ones, but I think that you definitely make use of all the different parts of it, right? And you also need to keep in mind that these things need to be sharpened. So you can actually buy tailor’s chalk sharpeners,  so that you can make really sharp lines. But an alternative is to just sharpen them the old-fashioned way by scraping it away with a knife or an x-acto blade so that you get a really nice sharp edge where you need it. Just be careful when you do this. 

Helen: Yes, and another little tip we have is to keep your tailor’s chalk in a little ziploc bag to prevent it from shattering and getting your sewing toolbox all covered in chalk dust. You know, ask me how I know. 

Caroline: I used to have these in school. And I actually, wasn’t a huge fan because I would keep them in my kit with all of my other drafting tools and sewing tools, and they break up, and they get this like chalky residue on everything. So I just, kind of, had this aversion to those types of chalk markers because they’re just messy.

Helen: Yeah. I haven’t used them very much because I like to use a different tool which brings us to our next subject which is: Chaco liners. And these are made by Clover, and they come in many different colors. And they’re pretty popular in the sewing community, so you might have seen them before. 

Caroline: Yes, and we’ve definitely talked about them on the show before. It’s no secret that this is our favorite marking tool. So Helen, why do we love chaco liners so much? 

Helen: Well, I like that the chalk dust is all contained inside the tool, so it’s not getting everywhere. And then there’s a little rolling wheel which allows for precision marking, and you don’t have to struggle to sort of drag it along the fabric to make those marks. We were talking about how, with the tailor’s chalk, if you’re dragging it along the fabric, you can, kind of, warp your piece. I find that the little rolling wheel doesn’t distort the fabric as much when you’re using it. It also makes a really satisfying, cute little rolling wheel noise. 

Caroline: It really does. And then you can really hear when it’s not rolling nicely, kind of, cause it makes a different sound. So you need to, kind of, like, go test it on another piece; try again. It is a very satisfying tool to use. 

Helen: Yeah, I actually first encountered it when I graduated from high school and my home-ec teacher gave me a chaco liner pen and a pair of fabrics sheers, like, on the graduation stage. When I went and walked across the stage to graduate, she, like, presented me with this cute little gift cause I loved my home-ec class so much. And I spent so much time in the sewing room with her, so that was really special. And that was my first time ever encountering the chaco liner, and I’ve never looked back. 

Caroline: Yeah, I also love that there are lots of color options with this pen, and they last a really long time. I have not had to replace mine yet, but when I do, I like that there’s a refill option instead of buying a whole new pen as well. 

Helen: Yeah, it’s true. You sell them at Blackbird. Is that right? 

Caroline: Yes, we do. 

Helen: Woo-hoo! Okay, so these are a plastic pen-like casing that’s filled with powder. The powder inside is made up of the same material that’s in tailor’s chalk: it’s a talc and a pigment to get the color. And there is a flat tip with a roller in it that dispenses a thin line of chalk whenever you roll the pen over your project. And it’s refillable, as we said, so you can reuse it. And, much like clay-based tailor’s chalk, you can brush it away when you no longer want the marking, but unlike tailor’s chalk, it rolls smoothly over the fabric, and it doesn’t tug or stretch it. 

Caroline: I would say that the disadvantage to chaco liner pens is that, like tailor’s chalk, the marks can fade or get brushed away when you’re, like, handling and ironing the fabric. So it’s nice that they brush away, but it’s also not nice depending on when it happens. 

Helen: It’s true. You have to be a bit strategic about when you make your markings, especially if you’re cutting projects out on a different day or time than you’re sewing. Even just the passage of time can cause these kinds of marks to fade.

Caroline: Exactly. Okay, we’ve talked all about chaco liners, so let’s move on to chalk pencils. This is another type of marking tool. Like tailor’s chalk, marking pencils can come in chalk or wax formulations. Dritz actually sells a chalk cartridge set where you can insert a chalk cartridge that looks like a thin pencil into a pen, and it also comes with a sharpener. And some of these chalk pencils just look like regular pencils, but instead of graphite in the center, there’s a waxy kind of marking formula. And these are nice cause they feel more familiar to hold in your hand than tailor’s chalk, and they have less risk of breaking into a million pieces.

Helen: Yes. So true. Okay, there’s also wax or chalk transfer with a tracing wheel, and this is a really neat system that I feel like is underused. I learned how to use this, again, when I was in high school, and I used it a lot for marking different things. And it can be really handy because the struggle often when you’re marking is, like, how do you get access to the area you want to mark underneath the pattern piece, right? The pattern piece is kind of blocking everything. So using a dressmaker’s carbon paper, chalk transfer paper, with a tracing wheel is one way that you can get underneath the pattern without disturbing it at all, so you make sure that it stays in the right place. So essentially it’s a small metal wheel with little points on it that’s attached to a handle. It looks, kind of, like a little pizza cutter or a rotary cutter, but it’s super spiky. And you roll it over the dressmaker’s carbon paper to transfer the markings onto your fabric. So you’ll have three layers: your fabric on the bottom, then the carbon paper with the colored side down, and then your pattern on top. And then you run the tracing wheel over the lines in the pattern to transfer the color from the carbon paper onto the fabric. You don’t even need a video. You’ve got me. 

Caroline: Do you ever think about, like, sewing tools, like, as emergency weapons? 

Helen: This would be the one.

Caroline: Like the tracing wheel? I think, like, if I were, like, zombie apocalypse, I would have, like, my rotary cutter in one hand and my tracing wheel in the other. 

Helen: I might grab my awl, you know, it’s really spiky. 

Caroline: Or, like, the, uh, this is getting a little dark, but my, um, what’s it called? The anvil. 

Helen: Oh my goodness. It’s true. It’s nice, it’s, like, it’s, like, heavy…

Caroline: It’s very heavy.

Helen: …but it’s still light enough that you can swing it around. 

Caroline: Anyways. Moving on. So dressmaker’s carbon paper can come, once again, in wax or chalk formulations in many colors. And you can use the paper many times over, basically until it stops making marks.

Helen: Yeah, and a tracing wheel and carbon paper are great to use for sustained lines, like transferring patterns on the fabric, rather than making really small marks, like a pocket placement. Just cause it’s a bit of a hassle to get out all of this stuff just to make like one little dot on your pattern, but you do get a really nice exact transfer from pattern to fabric, so I do love that about it. The downside of this is that it can be a little unwieldy to deal with big sheets of carbon paper and your fabric and the pattern and the spiky wheel. So it’s just a slightly more involved situation. 

Caroline: Yeah, I always wondered with that stuff, I’ve never used it before, but will the residue from the paper get on your fabric in the areas where you’re not using the tracing wheel or does it kind of keep to the paper pretty well? 

Helen: It keeps to the paper pretty well. I think, I’m not sure if I’ve used more of the wax or the chalk versions though. Um, I think maybe the wax version, and then in that case, it didn’t transfer. Maybe the chalk ones are a little bit more dusty. I don’t know. 

Caroline: Hm, I want to try it out. It seems really cool. Okay, so this next one is also so cool. There is a device that can make marking a hem by yourself so much easier. It’s basically a hem gauge combined with a chalk puffer. It looks a bit like a camera tripod, but without the camera on top. It has measurements along the stick in the center and a little pen sticking out from it that you can adjust to whatever measurement you want for your hem. And then you hold an air bulb that is attached to the pen by a hose and stand with your skirt touching the pen and you squeeze the air bulb to puff chalk powder out of the pen and mark your hem. So you can go around the whole hem that way. And I just think that that’s really innovative. 

Helen: It really is. This is truly for, you know, the home sewist who’s going at it alone. And the benefit is, too, that, like, of course you could measure from the waistband of your skirt or dress or pants down to figure out what the hem length should be and make it even all the way around. But maybe it’s not hanging evenly because you’ve got like a bit of a belly or, you know, because your bum is holding it up in the back, so you actually don’t want the same distance all the way around. You might want a different distance in the front than in the back. And this hem gauge measures up from the floor, so it gives you a more accurate hem. 

Caroline: Definitely, and I would say the disadvantage of this tool is that it’s pretty big. So if you live in a small space or if you just like simple solutions, this might not be for you. But the advantage is that the chalk powder is easily removed, and you can mark a hem without anyone else’s help. So it’s really, a thing that’s really self-sufficient, you don’t have to rely on anyone else to help you. And it’s really helpful for a-line skirts, circle skirts, things that can warp and stretch with gravity, so you know you’re always going to get that even hem every time. 

Helen: Awesome, and we have a Dritz version of this product that we will link in our show notes. 

Caroline: Amazing. So that wraps up our discussion of chalk- and wax-based marking tools. Let’s move on to another popular type of marking tool: the fabric markers.

Helen: Yeah. Popular brands of disappearing fabric markers include the Dritz Mark-B-Gone, Clover Water Erasable Marker, Pilot Frixion Pens, which are not for sewing but have been used by sewists for quite some time now. And also Crayola Washable Markers work well for sewing, too. 

Caroline: Yeah. So there’s like specialty ones for sewists and then, like, secret ones that we’ve discovered as sewists, and we’ll talk more about that later. I’m going to give another warning. While it’s important to test any marking tool on your fabric, it’s especially important with fabric markers which have more concentrated color. So please, please, please test the tool you plan to use with the fabric you plan to use, results can differ. So even marks that disappeared on one fabric type might not on the other. Okay, warning over. 

Helen: Okay. So most of fabric marking pens contain water soluble material. So you can tell if a pen is water soluble because the instructions will tell you to wet the fabric to remove the marks. And these work because the pigments are put into water-based mediums, so when they come in contact with water, they dissolve in it. In contrast, permanent markers are put into non-water-based mediums that do not dissolve in water. So Crayola Washable Markers aren’t intended for use by sewists, as we mentioned, but they work on the same principle as water-soluble fabric markers.

Caroline: Okay. Next is, kind of, a sewing hack because these pens are not formulated for use on fabric, but we use them anyways, as sewists: the Frixion pens. These are pens that are made for writing and erasing on paper, but sewists have started using them because the marks disappear when you iron them. The science of how it works is really interesting. The ink is made up of microcapsules that contain three substances: leuco dye, color developer, and color change temperature regulator. At room temperature, the leuco dye bonds with the color developer to make the ink’s color. When heated, by the friction of an eraser rubbing or the heat of an iron, the temperature regulator breaks these bonds, and the color disappears.

Helen: Whoa. 

Caroline: It’s really fascinating. I love the science behind this, and we should thank our assistant, Lisa, for doing this research because I think it’s really cool. 

Helen: It is really cool. And I think it’s kind of magical, too, when you go to iron your project and the marks disappear, but I’ve also had situations where, you know, you’re sewing a dart or something, and you want to give it a little quick press before you go to the sewing machine, and then your marks are gone. So you do have to be strategic about when you use these. And another issue with these is that the marks can reappear if the garment gets cold. So a Pilot rep who spoke to Jenny of The Quilt Skipper said that any temperature below freezing would cause this to happen. So in order to prevent this, you would have to remove the markings the same way you remove any ink markings using a specialized cleaning solution. So these are used at your own risk and for certain applications in sewing. It might not matter too much if you live in a warmer climate, but it would be awful to have your dart mark reappear when you go in a walk-in freezer at a supermarket or something. I love this analogy. When you work in a kitchen and you’re going into the deep freeze all the time, this is not the pen for you.

Caroline: I feel like it would be a great conversation starter though. 

Helen: It’s true. And like, you know, if the dart marks reappear usually they’re on the wrong side of the fabric. You probably won’t see them anyways. But again, it’s all about where you’re putting these markings. 

Caroline: Yeah, definitely. Okay. Another type of fabric marker is air soluble marking pens, like the Dritz “The Fine Line” Air Erasable Marking Pen. So these work by reacting with the carbon dioxide in the air, so you don’t need to do anything to erase these. It’s difficult to tell beforehand how long these marks will stick around, so testing is, again, important, but Amazon reviewers gave a range from 10 minutes to 24 hours.

Helen: Yeah. I have one of these in my collection, and I have used it a few times. If I want to make a quick mark for something, it’s really handy. But I do find that they fade quite a bit in the first 10 minutes, and then there’s a bit of a mark for about a day, and then it fades away which is really cool and can work for a lot of applications.

Caroline: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think that it could totally work if you’re, kind of, in the zone and just need to mark something before you take it over to your sewing machine. But if you’re marking in advance and you’re like me and it takes you weeks and weeks to finish a project, then probably not the best choice.

Helen: Yeah. Okay, so this next tool isn’t a fabric marker per se, but it works on the same principle: which is water soluble pencils. So water soluble pencils are similar to the markers in that the pigments are bound in a water soluble medium whereas regular colored pencils are bound in a waxy medium. So these come away with a wet cloth, and they’re best used in a firmly woven non-stretch fabric because it does take some pressure to make a mark with them. So if you’re going to be pushing hard down on your fabric, you don’t want to be doing that on something that has a loose weave or something that has some stretch to it. 

Caroline: Awesome. Okay. All of these marking tools require testing and could potentially damage our projects. So can we talk about alternatives here? 

Helen: Why are you so scared of marking tools, Caroline? 

Caroline: I don’t know, Helen. It’s bringing up a lot of feelings for me. 

Helen: Okay. There are tons of ways to mark without all these fancy gadgets, and these can be an, a more affordable option too because you don’t need to go out and purchase some specialty things. So this method is truly old school, and it’s kind of cool to know, and that’s: tailor’s tacks. Tailor’s tacks are a method of making marks on your fabric with just a needle and thread. And you can make them over top of the patterns, so you get super accurate marks. 

Caroline: Yeah. So to make them, you take a thread that contrasts with your fabric and thread your needle. You want it to be a double thread, but with no knot at the end. Put your needle into the fabric, and draw it back up close to make a small stitch. And then put your needle back in where you started and come back up as if to make a backstitch, but don’t pull it tight. You want to leave a finger size loop on top instead. Then, you snip the loop at the top to leave a little fringed ponytail on the top of your fabric, and that’s your marking. So if you’re going through two layers of fabric, you can pull the layers apart and snip the thread between them, and then you’ll have tacks on both layers. 

Helen: Yes. We’ll put some images of this in our show notes, of course. They do look like little ponytails sticking off either side of the fabric, like little fringe. And because you’re trimming on top of your pattern, you can just pull the pattern piece off after. It comes loose because the threads are in the fabric. And these are so easy to remove when you’re done with them. You just pull the threads from the fabric, and there’s nothing left. They also have the benefit of marking both sides of the fabric at the same time. Or if you’re cutting two layers of fabric at once, which we often are, you can actually pull it apart and have some of your tailor’s tacks on one side and some on the other. So there’s strategic ways to go about using these. The disadvantage of these is that they might take a little longer to do than other methods. After you get used to it, though, it will barely take longer than placing a pin or using another marking tool. There is also the risk of the threads pulling out if you handle the fabric piece a lot before you’re sewing it, or if it’s a looser weave. Of course, we’re talking about, like, a two- to three-inch long piece of thread, so it could easily come loose and, and end up somewhere else. But in general, I find that, when I’ve used these, that they don’t actually come loose as much as you think they might. 

Caroline: Yeah, and you can also, kind of, tie a really loose knot at the end of the ponytail, just to, like, keep it in place so that it won’t just get fully pulled out by accident. Just make sure you don’t tie that knot tightly to, like, pucker your fabric or anything. 

Helen: Yeah, that’s true. I think that this is a great tool to have in people’s arsenal. Like, if you just thread a needle and thread, when you’re working on cutting out your project, you can experiment with using tailor tacks, see if you like it, maybe you like it better than marking tools, and then, you can go from there.

Caroline: Yeah. Okay, you can also make basting stitches wherever you need to mark your fabric. So basting stitches are great for when you want the marking to stay around for a long time. So to make these, thread a hand sewing needle with a thread that contrasts with your fabric. Sew long stitches, and leave longish thread tails. And then, you can stitch on, or right next to, your basting stitches. And when you’re done, you can just pull the basting stitches out. So this method like tailor’s tacks truly leaves no marks, and it marks both sides of the fabric at once. I think the risk is that the threads could pull out with handling. It might take a bit longer if you’re not very comfortable with hand sewing, but both of these methods, the tailor’s tack and the basting, are really great uses for the end of your thread spool, if you’re trying to use up thread. So I think that they’re definitely worth mentioning. 

Helen: Yeah. I used the spacing stitch method recently because I’m working on an embroidery project, and I marked out the front panel piece of our March dress pattern with my chalk. But then I thought, Oh, this chalk’s not going to last; it’s going to rub off, especially because I’m handling it so much, and I’m embroidering it. So I went through and I basted it all around my chalk marking, and then I also basted it all around where the seam allowance was so that I wouldn’t accidentally embroider inside the seams. And I’ve been working on it for over a month; it’s taking me a while to embroider this piece. So it’s been great because these stitches are not going anywhere, and they clearly mark everything so I can see it, and they don’t disappear. So this was an instance where basting stitches was the right marking tool. 

Caroline: That makes so much sense. What a great hack. 

Helen: Okay. Another marking tool that doesn’t use pigment is the Clover Hera Marker. And this is, kind of, a plastic scoring tool. So to use it, you put your fabric on a hard surface and you drag the tool along the fabric to mark it. It reminds me of, like, a pastry cutter or, you know, you could just use, like, a credit card for something like this, too. And what’s great about the Hera Marker is that it’s simple, it’s low tech, it’s reusable indefinitely, and it will make a crease that’s visible on both sides of the fabric. 

Caroline: Yes. The disadvantage of the Hera Marker is that some might find it difficult to see the markings, and it’s only going to work on certain fabrics. Fabrics that crease, like linen and cotton, are going to work well, but I don’t think it would work well on poly or, like, a nylon swim fabric, for example. So more for natural fibers, not so much synthetics. 

Helen: Yeah, I’ve seen a few quilters using this in the quilting videos that I’ve been watching recently on YouTube. It does seem like a great tool to have in your arsenal for those quick markings. 

Caroline: Oh, yeah. 

Helen: Okay, let’s finish off our list of marking tools with some that are truly simple and low cost. You can use regular pencils and pens for marking. The most convenient marking tool is just whatever you have on hand. If you use these, you want to make sure that you only mark inside the seam allowance because you can’t really remove regular pen and pencil marks as easily from your fabric. But if you just need to mark on parts that are going to be inside the garment or end up trimmed away, this is a great option. You can mark things like notches, or you can make a little right side, wrong side marking just on the edge of your piece. It’s also great when working with muslins. If you’re doing a test version, if you’re not going to be wearing it out, you can just use markers. I’ve used Sharpies on my muslins many times. 

Caroline: That’s one of the fun things about muslins is that you can just draw all over them and not worry and just not have to test. It’s great. 

Helen: Yeah. 

Caroline: Okay. The other kind of household item that you’ll probably have around that you can use as a marking tool is soap. So this is a cheap or free way to make marks on your clothing. You can just use a bar of white soap. Hotel soaps are great for this because there are, like, the slivers at the end of the soap bar. Just make sure to use this only on washable fabrics because obviously soap will wash away no problem, but you need to be able to wash it. 

Helen: It’s true. And if something bad happens using a pencil or soap, you can’t come crying to us cause we told you to test. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. That finishes our very long list of marking tools. There are so many, so thank you for bearing with us. Now we’re going to discuss some marking tips for when you’re actually going through the process of marking your fabric. 

Caroline: Let’s do it. Okay. Transferring markings from a pattern comes with the challenge of making the markings accurate, right? So you have several options for how to do this. You can insert a pin through the pattern and then carefully tear the pattern over the pin. I do this. And it works okay. It’s a little bit stressful though because you have to be really careful when you’re pulling the paper over the pin that you don’t rip it too much and that you don’t move the pin, but when you get used to it, it’s pretty straightforward. You can also fold the pattern piece back to where the marking is and mark right next to it. So find your marking, maybe put your finger there, kind of fold it away so that you can get to the fabric, and just mark directly onto the fabric. You can cut a hole in the pattern or poke through it with a tailor’s awl, for example, and make a marking through that hole. This is really great. If you have that cardstock where you’re working with a pattern that’s maybe a TNT and you use again and again, you can just prep all of your holes and markings on the papers so that it’s really easy to just stick your marking tool through the hole and make your markings as you go. You can also do tailor’s tacks through the pattern and fabric and just snip the loop so that the pattern pulls free. And the other way you can do it is use a tracing wheel and dressmaker’s carbon paper. 

Helen: Yes, I love all of these suggestions. I’m a big fan of the folding the pattern piece back to where the marking is and just marking right next to it. But of course you have to be careful not to jostle your pattern piece too much. So once you get used to this, like you said, it does get a bit easier, but for beginner sewists, I think, there’s a lot of things going on, and you want to make sure everything’s, like, straight and perfect, and it can be a bit stressful to start moving things around like that.

Caroline: Yeah, and you always want to make these markings on a flat surface. Um, like, I’m thinking if you forget to make a marking and then you’re, like, sitting at your sewing machine, don’t just put it on your lap and try to figure it out, sort of, on the fly. You really need a flat surface that you can make sure that you’re lining up your pattern piece correctly and that nothing is, sort of, warping, especially when the fabric pieces are already cut, they’re really prone to kind of stretching and warping on the bias, so try to do it on a flat surface. 

Helen: That’s a great tip. Okay. Here’s an issue that a lot of sewists face when they’re using marking tools: how do you get a sharp, clean line?

Caroline: That is a good question. So if you’re using a tightly woven fabric, maybe medium or heavyweight thickness, and you’re marking on the grain, you’re going to be able to make marks really easily. So these fabrics are best for marking tools that require some pressure to make a mark, like a tailor’s chalk or pencils or soap. If you’re using a more loosely woven fabric, or maybe one with stretch, or if you’re marking on the bias, you want to be a bit more mindful of how you mark. So one option is to use a marking tool that glides really smoothly, like our favorite chaco liner pens, markers, or a tracing wheel with carbon paper. But if you’d rather use a marking tool that takes more pressure, you can put a ruler or your hand down along the part you need to mark, kind of press down firmly, and mark close by the ruler or the edge of your hand. So this is going to keep the fabric from stretching out and allow you to use enough pressure to make a good mark. Our final tip to make sharp clean lines is to keep your marking tools fresh. So sharpen your pencils or chalk because blunt tools are going to leave more of a haze than a clean lin, and make sure you replace pens as they’re running out of ink. 

Helen: Yes, I realized this once because I had some old fabric pencils that were in, like, my mom’s sewing kit or something. I can’t remember where they came from, but they weren’t working, and I found them so annoying. And then I sharpened it one day because it snapped, and it was so much better, like, I think there was just, like, a residue of, like, years of container gunk, like, over the chalk. And so it wasn’t really functioning, but when I gave it a fresh cut, it was like new chalk. 

Caroline: It’s so true. That’s definitely happened to me before with older tools, like giving it a good sharpen can really do wonders. And also just some marking tools, I think, just don’t work on certain fabrics. So if you have one that’s not showing up, it could just be because that tool or that particular, you know, marking tool that you’ve picked out is just not a good match.

Helen: Yeah, it’s true. Okay, I’m sure this has happened to most of us before. You’re in the middle of sewing a garment and the pattern references a marking that you forgot to make when you’re cutting it out. How do you go back and make that marking? Caroline, I know you just gave a great tip about doing it on a flat surface. You can grab your pattern piece, you can put your project on the flat surface, and you can make that marking. Or you can also measure the distance from say the notch to the nearest seam on the pattern, and then measure that distance on the garment piece as well. And sometimes this can be extra challenging because if you’ve already started the construction process, you might have to consider seam allowance and things like that when you’re measuring your garment, but just do the best you can to get that marking. And then in some cases I will say, even as a pattern designer, that marking might not be as crucial as you think it is. So just evaluate the situation and think, do I really need this marking for this pocket placement? Or could I just put my garment down on the table and figure out where I want to put the pocket?

Caroline: Yeah, it’s so true. And I have another little extra tip for, if you’re laying that pattern piece over your fabric piece, like on a table, like we mentioned earlier, is that if you’ve started to sew your garment already, make sure that you’re accounting for the seam allowance of the parts that you’ve already sewn. So if you’ve already sewn a side seam, for example, you’re not going to line up the pattern piece right at that stitch line. You need to, kind of, overlap it over the stitch line to account for the seam allowance so that you’re making sure that you’re getting an accurate marking. So just keep that in mind.

Helen: And we mentioned this at the top of the episode, but it bears repeating because it’s such a good tip. When you’re working with fabrics that don’t have an obvious right and wrong side, you can use a marking tool to mark the right side of your pattern pieces. And this helps you to avoid making annoying mistakes, like sewing the right side to the wrong side, or having to tear out your work. Maybe you’re working with a pattern where you have to sew the wrong side to the right side at some point, and it’s not your usual construction methods. You want to make sure that you don’t make that mistake. You can also mark front and back pieces if they look similar. So using a marking tool for this is great. However, we talked about how many of them disappear quite quickly, so if you are doing this, you might want to use a marking tool that’s going to stick around a little bit longer. Or you could use something else, like some washi tape or something that will just, like, peel off when you’re done with it. Again, you should always test these things with delicate fabric, but I think that I’ve seen washi tape used many times for this, and it seems to be a favorite. 

Caroline: Yeah, or, like, painter’s tape because that comes off really easily and shouldn’t leave a residue, but I’m not going to say it again, but I think, you know what I’m going to say.

Helen: I know, I know. 

Caroline: Okay. We have a tip from Threads as well, and that is to color code your marking. If you have more than one color or more than one marking tool, you can use different colors to mark your darts and pocket placements, for example. So kind of color coding it so you, sort of, know what the marking is for.

Helen: Yeah, sometimes in patterns a lot of marking is going on, and then you go back to sew it and you’re like, I don’t know, which is which, so color coding could come in really handy. And if you’re using a marking wheel and carbon paper on the same pattern over and over, or if you’re using it on a tissue paper pattern, the perforations can cause the pattern to start to come apart over time. So Melly Sews recommends reinforcing the lines with tape before you punch through with your marking wheel. I love this. I remember when I was using carbon paper more often, I was also using tissue patterns more often, and it was an issue. If you start making those dart markings, like, it won’t be long before you’ve completely cut out that little triangle of dart.

Caroline: Yeah, that’s such a good tip and such an easy fix just to place tape on those areas to reinforce them. And one thing that’s worth mentioning as well, is that for notches, you don’t necessarily have to use a marking tool. You can just snip a quarter inch into your seam allowance instead of using a marking tool, just to indicate where you have notches.

Helen: Yeah. That’s my preferred way to do it for sure. Okay. There’s so much to know about marking tools, obviously, but don’t let this overwhelm you. Just pick one, test it. And if it works, go ahead and keep using it. There are marking tools and methods for every budget and every situation out there. So we hope this episode gave you all the information you need to move forward and mark with confidence. Go forth, and make your mark.

Caroline: Mark my words, Helen. 

Helen: Mark my words, Caroline.

Caroline: That’s it for today’s episode of Love to Sew. You can find me Caroline at blackbirdfabrics.com and Helen at helensclosetpatterns.com. 

Helen: We’re recording in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, and you can get in touch with us and get links for everything we talked about in this episode at lovetosewpodcast.com. 

Caroline: And if you’re loving the show and you want to help us out, you can support us on Patreon. Contribute $5 or more a month and you’ll get access to our bonus episode feed where you will find out what I got Helen for her birthday. 

Helen: Woo-hoo!

Caroline: And contribute $10 or more a month and you will get a 15% discount code for both of our shops which basically pays for itself and a bonus mini episode. Go to patreon.com/lovetosew for more info. 

Helen: And don’t forget all of our podcast’s merchandise is on sale the week this episode comes out. For 25% off, you can go to lovetosewshop.com to check that out. And thanks to our amazing podcast team. And thank you so much for listening. We’ll talk to you next week. 

Caoline: Bye.

Helen: Buh-bye.

Caroline: Dritz actually sells a chalk cartridge set where you can insert a chall-. Oh my God. I’m sorry. I can’t read it right.

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