100 Details in 100 Days: Day 15

I am a big fan of hard graphite pencils. My first preference for design transfer is a hard graphite pencil and a light box. There is very little I can't do with pencil. Especially since I discovered spray starch as a barrier and olive oil soap for washing my finished projects.

That said, sometimes the fabric is too opaque for the design to be placed under an item to be transferred. What then?

Well, for me, graphite is still the solution. With an opaque fabric, I have two methods that work.

The first still uses a hard graphite pencil, but instead of direct transfer, I draw over the design laying down a lot of graphite on the pattern. Then I flip it over and lay the design pencil-marked side down directly on the fabric and use the same pencil to mark it from the wrong side. The pencil marking from the other side of the pattern transfers the graphite to the fabric. This works well, but you have to worry about design orientation.

The other method I use, is to lay a piece of graphite artist's paper between the fabric and the design, then run a stylus, hera marker or pencil across the pattern. You have to do a lot of checking and peeking to make sure that you are not missing any of the pattern and not to marking too broad of a line. It is a simple and effective method of design transfer. Be sure to use a wax free artist's graphite paper, such as Sally's by Saral.

Remember graphite pencils and transfer paper both come in white for those dark fabrics.