Neocolor II and Pitt Markers

Fabridoodle wall hanging

My name is Jackie Zimmerer.  I'm wife of nearly 31years to my best friend, Albert, mom to four grown sons, and Grandma Nonnie to six (seven in December) amazing grandchildren. 

For the past ten years I worked in the commercial embroidery and screen print world.  The last eight of those years I co-owned a commercial shop but sold my shares of that very successful enterprise to my business partner in March of this year. 

Re-careering at any age is both a joy and a challenge, however I am too young to retire and knew I still wanted to work with fabric as a media, and artistic pursuits using design software seems to be what I do best so I purchased a Gammill Statler Stitcher (a commercial, computerized longarm quilting machine) and started quilting for the public. 

I prefer tutorials to Television and one day I watched a guest on The Quilt Show (with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims) show how to use free motion quilting to make quilt motifs extend along the edge of odd cuts of fabric,  visually carrying the motif into the rest of the work.  Since I love to free motion quilt (as well as quilt on the longarm) I had to try it. I took a 6.5" square of a bright Moda print from my stash, added orange 2.5" strips and some nearly white Bamboo fabric and made the top.   Using a Superior verigated thread I quilted the motifs. the fill work was a simple paisley in white polyester embroidery thread.   I wish I had taken a photo of the project with just the quilting.  Nice, fun to do, but no pizzaz!   Alas...

A few days later I watched a Youtube video about Neocolor II artists' crayons.  The process looked interesting but I had qualms about using the water based media on fabric, especially since I had issues with bleeding when using Derwent Inktense Pencils on fabric in the past.  Yet/ the idea of  experimenting with the Neocolor II kept running through my head.

About the same time I attended the Bonham, Texas Quilt Hop and, at the second vendors' booth I walked up to, met an amazing woman, Elizabeth from SavvyQuilters.com.  She had a demonstration set up using Faber Castel Pitt Artists Markers to do the line work on fabric projects with crayolas.  I immediately saw the possibilities, bought several of the pens and when I got home I looked at my already-quilted project and decided in for a penny, in for a pound! 

Neocolor ll and the markers worked. The rest is history!

Coloring the free motion quilting project turned out exceptionally well and I tried another project...then another.  I was hooked, especially since, with the Pitt Markers, I can use different types of artists pigments for the main background and touch up with the translucent artists markers. Next time I will Share how I made this wall hanging.