January 4, 2019 How to Get Rid of Those Old, Crappy Ink Pens

When you want something a little different, possibly one of a kind, grab some pens.  An inexpensive and quick process to hand dye some fabric for stitching that won't empty your wallet OR take much time.

This nifty trick has worked out very well on several occasions.  I've learned a few things about different pen ink and what it does to the kitchen counters, plastic cutting boards, skin.....and fabric.

Certain gel pens, for example, won't dye the fabric.  The gel ink will actually bleach a fabric.  Ball point or fine point pens have better ink even if the pen itself is of the "el cheapo" variety.  Different brands use different colors and types of ink etc., generally speaking, ink is pretty easy to work with even it it takes a few tries to make it work in your favor.

Let's start with items you will need:

1) Latex gloves or even a pair of marigolds will do. PROTECT YOUR SKIN!

2) A large glass mixing bowl.  Metal works fine but glass is best and never use plastic.  Ink will stain the plastic and the boiling water could melt the plastic...end result being melty, plastic plus staining everything forever equals no bueno.

3)  Gather up those junkie pens you have.  I store mine in a big zip lock baggie and as I find more (there are always more) which get thrown in the baggie for future use.

4)  Ask yourself why you have all of these junkie old pens?  Do you have a problem leaving that pen at the doctor's office or that time you signed something at the bank and magically that pen ended up at your house being moved from spot to spot because it's a junkie pen but you can't seem to throw it away?  Why do you have so many leaking gel pens?

5) Pull out a nice sized piece of fabric.  6 x 9 inches is best for test pieces.  You have enough to test with and stitch a couple smalls.

6)  Get your kettle boiling.

7)  Kitchen scissors.  Please don't use those really good silver scissors or those expensive titanium scissors.  You will be cutting plastic.

8)  A junky hand towel.

9)  An iron with steamy steam

10) Blocking pad or ironing board

Now that you have all of the items mentioned and have done some soul searching, put those gloves on so we can now begin.

Disassemble the pen.  All you need is the ink tube.  Once that has been accomplished, take your scissors (also, do not use a knife unless you want ink on everything because you are creating an object d'art) and cut one end of the ink tube over the glass bowl.  Try to make sure there is as much empty tube as possible on the one end.  Carefully cut the ink end to get rid of the nib and this time make sure you are doing this over the glass bowl.  The cut ends like to fly around if not properly supervised during cutting.

Now put your scissors down and carefully blow from the non-ink end of the tube into the glass bowl.  Blow gently.  This isn't a breathalyzer test, nor are we blowing up balloons.  The ink will come out easily.  Try and get as much ink out as possible by blowing and then gently tapping the ink end of the tube on the bottom of the bowl.  Ink is sneaky stuff and wants to fling itself everywhere.

By now the kettle should be boiling.  Hopefully it was plugged in (if you have electric) and had water in it.  Since I didn't specify earlier that your kettle had to have water, please take a moment and put water on to boil now.

Once you have boiling water, carefully pour the water into the glass bowl.  This is where you get to figure out how dark or light you want your ink color to be.  If you have more than one of the same kind of junky pen with the same color ink and don't like how light the first tube of ink looks, then add a second.  Make sure to stir with a metal spoon.  A good thing to mention here is that you could do this with cold water, however, the results aren't as good and the ink gets a little funky.  Boiling water effectively melts any globs or thicker inks.  Some inks really don't appreciate being mixed with cold water.  Just something to consider when you are standing there insisting I'm wrong.  I assure you, I have tested these methods several times and have done everything one way or another to make sure you didn't have to.

Next, gather your fabric.  It's true that fabric will shrink once it gets thrown into boiling water but that's okay...use a larger eye needle when stitching if that helps.  I use John James size 26 tapestry all of the time and rarely have issues....except this one time when I was stitching RAWR and spilled wine.......uhm....so there will be some tips for the shrinking later on.

You don't have to pre-moisten the fabric, just throw it in there and submerge the fabric so it absorbs everything.  The color adheres very quickly. Generally speaking, it doesn't matter how long for most inks.  Once the fabric has absorbed the color, that's it.  Nothing more will happen.  No getting darker, nothing weird, it's just colored fabric.

Run cold water in your sink and rinse the fabric until there is no more bleeding color.  It might take less than a minute.  Roll your fabric up into a junky hand towel (better to be safe!) and give it a twist or two to get maximum dryness.  

Take your precious cargo to the ironing board and turn your iron on to it's highest steamy setting.  Are you hyperventilating with concern about more shrinking?  Calm yourself, I assure you it's alright.

Before you take your gloves off, this is a really good time to clean up the pen debris, and make sure you don't have any ink spots messing up your counters or sink.  Yes, bleach is very effective in cleaning up any mistakes, but let's just be safe shall we?  

It is completely up to you whether or not you dump the inky water at this time.  If you have more than enough crappy pens to see you through the current millennium and beyond, then dump it.....carefully down the drain.  Honestly it hasn't stained my sink yet but I am careful to rinse out the sink once that is dumped just in case.

Lay your fabric flat and try to smooth any twist creases.  It is at this time that you may remove your gloves.  If you are still concerned about staining, by all means keep the gloves on.  It's always better to be safe than to end up with blue/black/green/red hands.

Iron the fabric like you would any other fabric making sure to cover the sides as well.  It takes longer to iron the fabric dry than it does to go through everything you have done thus far.  The steam relaxes the fabric enough to be stitched without being too much of a struggle.  Flip the fabric over and iron again.  When you have done this a few times, change the iron setting to dry and iron until your fabric is flat and stiff.  You will note that your fabric has fluffed out a bit and shrunk slightly, but note that with the steam and then dry iron technique, the fabric isn't as bad off as it could have been.

Admire your fabric.  The great part about using ink from a pen to dye is that the color you see when the fabric is wet is pretty much the color you will see when it's dry.  Some inks do darken while being ironed which is strange but it happens. Remember that mixing gel and ball point pen ink isn't a good idea.  One cancels out the other and does bad things to your mind and spirit.  Another good thing to mention here is that pen ink doesn't need to have a follow-up bath in vinegar or any other agent that will help set the color.  It just IS.  

I have not yet tried ink from glitter, metallic, or colored pens.  You know those pens that come in a set that are various colors?  I have the pens and now really want to test those out!  When I do, I'll follow up with an updated post just for you.

That is my handy tip on how to get rid of those old, crappy ink pens. Hope you enjoyed it and give it a test run soon.

Until next time, KEEP ON STITCHIN'!