Recently I have been working with Spirograph. Yes, the spirograph from the 60s, and something I had as a kid.  I have a few videos on YouTube about Spirograph and PTSD, and today I added a video about using a spirograph design to make your own quilt motifs.  All the videos can be seen at this Playlist.

What I wasn't sure of when I first made the video was how well the transfer pencil would wash out. Below are photos of the test sample I did:

This first photo is the design transferred to fabric. In this case I used muslin.

 Below is the design, hand-quilted with black and purple threads, with much of the pink transfer showing.

After quilting, I washed the sample in very warm soapy water.

As you can see, all of the pink transfer washed out.

Below is the sample design after pressing. This is done as a "rag quilt" block, but it could be used in most quilting applications, anywhere that a design can be ironed on.

 UPDATE: I am only getting one use out of each design drawn with the Aunt Martha's pencil, meaning it has to be gone over with the pencil before transferring again.  I am looking at other transfer pencils for multiple use of one design. Below are some photos showing how I also used this same design to transfer onto cross stitch fabric.  I did re-trace the design with the transfer pencil in-between each transfer.  One sample cloth has been tea dyed.

Spirograph -believe it or not, I am finding there is a great value in drawing with a Spirograph set.  Because it is based in math and on the number of teeth each wheel or template has, it removes the thought process of adding and subtracting while drawing or painting.

If I stipple with ink a flower, it is a constant process of adding dots to complete an image.  When using spiro, that adding thought is eliminated.  Even if originally done subconsciously, I do not have to count or add as I work when using spiro because the teeth are counted, the design defined.

I had said in my video on spiro that by using a math-oriented tool, I can focus less on creative, more on mathematical. True, but not because of my thinking. I am thinking less math, and allowing myself to be influenced by math.  Someone else has done the math for me, and my spiro designs will be better or worse (shakiness, skipping, etc.) depending on how I am letting the math of the tool influence me, not by my own thinking.

An anlaogy is to driving a car.  I can rebuild a carburetor on my old MGB and have it run the way I know it can, but now, with Spirograph, I am driving someone's else's Corvette.  The MGB (stippling) feels good, the stick shift is"mine", but the Vette seat is back a bit too far,  it's a red car so it is louder, unfamiliar, it is using someone else's expertise.

In such a simple tool as a Spirograph, there is the same thinking of building a Corvette: math, engineering, that I do not have to think about.

The value of the art piece is no longer my thinking, but my ability to "be one" with math, science, and engineering. The universe is based in math. So, instead of limiting me with a simple tool, it is allowing me to think about the universe and not about counting the dots. Balance, neutrality, both hope and despair, in the simple math of a Spirograph.