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What kind of starch do you use?

12 years ago

I just read the post about using a #2 regular pencil to mark a quilt....dated back to August.

Some of the ladies said they use starch before they mark a quilt with a regular pencil and the lines do wash out. I have been afraid to try a regular #2 pencil, but I'm ready to try it! What kind of starch do you use? I used to buy Faultless Starch many years ago, but I had problems with it flaking, now all I use is Magic Sizing. Does that "qualify" for this purpose, lol?

Thanks, Devonne

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Comments (5)

rosajoe_gw
12 years ago
I use so much starch that I mix my own! This way I can only mix small batch as needed and it is much cheaper.

Magic Sizing will work and mark with a light hand.

Rosa
calliope
12 years ago
guilty of using all sorts of things to mark sewing lines from carbon paper to tailor's chalk, to pencils to wash-out children's magic markers. All seems to have laundered out so far. I like to just use my tailor's chalk I mark darts with when sewing. It wipes off with a spritz of water from my mister and a gentle swipe of the hand.

Spray starch seems to have come a long way from a few decades ago when it routinely used to gunk up my iron's plate. I am like Rosajoe in that I really like the old-fashioned starch one buys in a box and mixes. Argo. But I don't use it when making blocks but should.
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Through much of my lifetime in a state with a lot of diversity and Chinese inbound immigration, male Chinese immigrants to the US were rarely taller than a few inches over 5 feet. They were noticeably shorter than everyone else. I saw the same on numerous trips to Asia in the 70s. I remember riding on a public bus up to Hakone Lake in Japan for which the space between the seat back and the front of the seat in front of me was too small for my legs to squeeze in so I couldn't sit, but the ceiling of the bus was too low for me to stand upright. All because of the people being short. I remember walking around cities in Japan and also in Hong Kong and feeling like a giant even though I'm just a tad over 6 feet, the locals were short. I remember visits to Spain, Italy and Portugal in the 1970s and wondering why everyone was so short. I suspect I'm much more familiar with all of these cited areas during these years. I had friends when growing up whose families were of Southern European origin. Whose parents (some foreign born) were short. Whose ancestors came here because they were starving. Ever run into a tall Sicilian immigrant in the US in the 50s-80s? I never did. Later generations here are much taller for peoples of all origins than their ancestors who left lands where people were malnourished. Same is true in their home countries too, nutrition has improved and, in the case of China and other parts of SE Asia, fewer famines and starving people. Diets with inadequate calories and so lacking in proper nutrition as to stunt the growth of children and people well into adulthood are not healthier. I'm not going to argue with you, you seem to argue just to argue. Those are my REAL experiences, you can be silly and dispute them as you tend to like to do. Come up with a different explanation and tell me I didn't see what I saw.
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petalpatsy
12 years ago
I have Sta-Flo liquid concentrate that I dilute into my own trigger sprayer. I really like a can of spray starch once in a while--especially in winter, and it has to be original scent. When I was little, I spent a bazillion and one hours practicing piano in the basement while my mom ironed my father's dress shirts--he was a teacher, so he didn't get ironed shirts in the summer. I only took piano lessons to get out of gym, so the practice responsibility was a shocker. That starch scent gives me childhood nostalgia, but now I've got my own teenagers and somehow I'm laughing with my mother at me.
nannykins
12 years ago
I cannot find liquid starch here in Windsor so mostly use the sprays. I must ask one of my friends who shops in Detroit to see if she can find some.
I remember my mother making her own starch for clothes with corn starch. Would that work if it were watered down a bit??? or a lot????

theresa
calliope
12 years ago
The argo starch here is a dry form. Yes, I suppose one could make their own starch. I think the old-timers did. I wonder, however, if something is added to commercial clothes starches to retard mildews? Can you imagine making starch from food starch and using it on a shirt, putting it away in a closet and taking it out with mildew on it? I have used that in a pinch under wallpaper if a corner lets loose, and it can get moldy.

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