Crazy Quilting with Silk Fabric

I am making a new crazy quilt and I am using silk fabric for the bases. Silk works well for crazy patchwork and gives a subtle glow to the blocks. When I use cotton fabrics I have no problem marking the occasional guidelines for the stitches using a blue water soluble marker or white chalk pencil depending on the colour of the block.

Base block using silk fabric

I cannot usually use markers on silk though because the silk seems to resist the marks and they don't show up or the silk seems to retain the mark after I have erased it.

In the past I have occasionally used a product called Tiger Tape, which is a masking tape with printed lines on it but I found that it had too many marks and was just confusing.

I had the bright idea to use some blue painters tape and mark lines a half an inch apart on one side and three quarters an inch on the other side. It worked really well and because I don't usually mark the stitches very often, the same piece of painters tape has lasted for months.

Stitch guide using painters tape

Here are some cute little birds I ended up putting on the block in the first photo.

Bye for now,
Linda