Query re: using ballpoint tube paints

Welcome to the newsgroup. I wish I could be more helpful. Losing your eyesight can be extremely devastating and my heart goes out to you. I watched my one grandmother who was very talented in needlework and china painting go through this.

My other grandmother in her later life, who didn't have many skills, embroidered with paints on stamped pillow cases. They were not stiff. But that was 30 years ago.

Mary Maxim is a reputable dealer. If you're really concerned, purchase one tube, paint on a scrap of fabric, wash it, dry it, and see what you think. My grandmother's pillow cases were never stiff, and I'm sure they wouldn't be with modern paints.

Dianne

L> This is my first post to this newsgroup and I'm hoping someone can give

Back in the 60s/70s when the ballpoint paint tubes first came out. Your idea will work BUT be sure to put something inside the pillowcase before you start. At least in the olden days, the paint would seep through into the second layer of fabric. Don't know if that's been improved in the newer version.

ISTR that you had to heat-set the paint with an iron before washing. Check the manufacturer's website.

Welcome to the group!

I've done a fair amount of painting on fabric - for custom jobs - t-shirts, pillowcases, etc. There are several brands of acrylic paint made for painting on fabric. Most are in squeeze 1 oz bottles, the paint flows through a hole in the tip. There are also the ball-point types. And squeeze tubes. These paints aren't very expensive, IME, you can find them on sale for well under $1 US a bottle - usually around .70 at any Michaels or AC Moore. If you're really interested in doing this - you can also buy regular tube or gel weight artist acrylic paint that can be mixed with a fabric medium, and then painted on with a brush. That is definitely more expensive per paint, but if you know how to mix colors, works out.

Any of these paints that are meant for fabric, or with the medium added, will be flexible and should handle being laundered. With your eyesight bothering you, it might be easiest to use the squeeze bottles, and perhaps some of the tube types for finer lines. Regardless, they all have some instructions. The craft shops sell a kind of waxed cardboard insert to put under the layer you're painting. That's key - you definitely will want to put a piece of cardboard, with some absorbent white paper towel, or spare teas towel behind the surface being painted. IME, this has to stay while the paint dries at least most of the way, and then can be removed.

I think you've got a good idea. Just when you buy some paints, do practice on some scrap before doing your real project. You have to work a little to feel the control for flow and thickness of the paint.

Enjoy, Ellice

My mother used to do this back in the 1970's - and it is stiff when first completed. The stuff she used was a specific brand called Artex. You could buy a complete set of them, and they came with a hoop that had a solid back (that way, you didn't have to worry about bleed-through onto the other side of the pillowcase, or whatever). There were a lot of dish-towels that were Artexed in our house. I think my Aunt and Grandmother did them, as well, and I remember doing some myself.

The bad thing is, as with all fabric paints, is that over time, it "fades" or washes off. She may actually have some remnants (mother grew up during WWII, nothing was wasted in her time, so if a portion of a dish towel became threadbare, that portion was removed, and other things were made from the good parts, like (heavy-duty, the kind used when you have a bad cold) hankies, or maybe a dish-rag) of some of the dish towels left, and you can barely see the pints any more.