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Friday, May 6, 2016

Refillable starch brush for applique'

If you do appliqué with freezer paper you probablly use starch to get a nice crisp turn that stays. This can be done either by spraying on from the can which is the lazy easy way that I have always done. This method results in getting way more starch on than you need, gets both the paper and the fabric way to wet causing the paper to bend and get wonky. Now, I know a lot of people with more patience than I , spray the starch into a bowl and paint it on the edges with with a paintbrush. This is really what you should do.

 

The other day I came across this watercolor paint brush that I bought when I had a short interest in watercolor. You put water in the pen, then just dip in the watercolor paint. What if I put starch in it?

 

The top comes off like this and you fill the blue part.

The problem is, I only had spray starch in a can and while it did spray in the hole really well, it comes out all foam. Pretty messy.

 

Eventually I got enough in there that wasn't foam to work.


And work it does! Squeeze the blue part and it comes out like you are using a marker or pen.
 

I've used it for 3 days and it hasn't clogged but I don't know if it will after awhile but I think I like this and it is easy and quick. Also if I used spray starch in a jug it probably would be so much easier to fill as that seems to be the only drawback so far.

 

So Here is what to look for in the store

I think I bought mine in Micheals for about 8 bucks.

 

Next week on Friday I will be posting about my "late afternoon sun on the lake" art quilt for a blog hop called

Art with fabric. Check it out here, there are art quilters each doing a quilt inspired by a traditional artist of their choice all week starting on Monday. I am doing Lawren Harris of th Canadian group of seven.

You may remember the beginnings of it.

 

 

Stay tuned next week for the finish!

 

4 comments:

  1. Oh Yes!!!! You are a genius! Not that I do a lot of applique, but there are times when I want to do the starch thing. It has always been awkward to use. This is too perfect!

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  2. Would you pretty please share at my Lessons Learned Linky? http://quiltingmod.blogspot.com/2016/05/lessons-learned-linky-5.html
    I've been doing some appliqué, and the paintbrush method was so tedious that I started just spritzing the entire templar shape. My starch usage was less efficient, but I was dying to speed things up. This would have been really great.

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  3. Genius! I have to get one of those pens. The one drawback to applique is that mess with the starch, but now that you've solved it, there are no excuses. And I love the idea for the inspired art quilt--can't wait to see how this one comes out!

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  4. Genius! I have to get one of those pens. The one drawback to applique is that mess with the starch, but now that you've solved it, there are no excuses. And I love the idea for the inspired art quilt--can't wait to see how this one comes out!

    ReplyDelete