I was reading somewhere over the past week or two about using ground
cinnamon spice for quilt marking.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been marking out a new
wholecloth. It's been a pain.

However, I learned some stuff. I usually use either a Roxanne marker
(Quilter's choice) or a watercolour pencil in a suitable colour (not
too dark, but contrasting). I sometimes use an HB pencil or chalk,
but not usually on something this large (it's queen-size) as it rubs
off before I get to it, which is very annoying.

The middle, and two borders went just fine. I made templates for the
middle and third border, and a stencil for the second border. I
traced the corner stones with a lightbox. Ok that was my sewing
machine table with an Ott Light underneath, but you know the kind of
thing. (I LOVE my new Ott light (NAYY). I've had it a month and it's
brilliant.

Anyway. The main point of this post was to talk about cinnamon. And
that is what happened today. The final border is a celtic knot with
lots of repeats. Two days ago I made a template (after photocopying
it to the right size and so on) and took all day yesterday
painstakingly drawing round it agin and again. YAWN! Yes it worked.
But oh so slowly.

Thought: pounce. I have one of those white pounce pads. Good on dark
fabrics, but this is pale. no good. they make a darker one, but I
want this done today, so that ain't gunna happen.

Thought cinnamon? Will it stain? Will I have to use loads of it.
The thing I read about it said something about it being too expensive
for an "ancestor" to use. I thought it was worth a try.

Brill-y-ant! I popped a teaspoonful in some butter muslin (like
bandage) and bounced up and down on the new paper stencil. The
stencil was a photocopy cut with a scarpel and scissors. It was dead
easy, not like a card or plastic one. Then I went over the marks with
a pencil, and removed the spice with a pastry brush.

It took about ten minutes a side to mark, and that includes the
preliminary squaring and putting in reference points. It brushed off
completely, and I did the whole thing using about three teaspoons of
cinnamon. No stains, no residue, and I believe it is a mothproofer
too. Added bonus here, remember!

So, I am sure cinnamon could have been used by our forbears and didn't
cost them a bomb. The quilt is now marked and ready to press and
sandwich, tomorrow. Great experiment; successful outcome.

http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/f...ilt%20marking/

And boy! am I glad to have finished the marking.

Nel
(Gadget Queen)