That's ok babeegirl . I was just wondering . Annie

I had bought white pencils, I think "general" brand, the wood natural looking pencils for my mom. They work great and we ended up buying a bunch more. Never have problems sharpening them, but found some blue and yellow by same brand and can't get them to work in any of my sharpeners without breaking, so I just use a sharp knife and "sharpen" them the old-fashioned way. The lead doesn't get pointy, but at least they are usable.

How do you successfully sharpen these pencils? Some of them are too big to go in my pencil sharpener. Others just break and break and break.

A bad idea: I used lead pencil darkly to mark a quilt thinking it would erase easily. It didn't. If marked very lightly, it's not too bad.

A very very very bad idea: Using any sort of ink pen.

I have seen faded marks on some pieces - possibly from the wash-out or fade-away markers.

If doing straight-line quilting, the masking/quilter's tape works fairly well.

I have bought white quilting pencils , they broke . Sharpened down to a stub . Tried white colored pencils , not much better . Bearisgray , are your pencils the fat ones ? Like beginner crayons for little ones ? Try to find a hand pencil sharpener with 2 holes . 1 small for regular pencils and 1 big one [ like for fat crayons ] . That's what I did . Good luck . Babeegirl , walmart doesn't have the white or yellow lead for mechanical pencils . At least not here . I going to look at staples . I'll let you know what I find . Annie

Connecting threads have the Fons & Porters mechnical pencils that I have heard work very well. I have used the white pencil (from WM) on dark and the purple/blue pens on lighter colors. They both work fine. I sharpen with one of those old timey hand held sharpeners with 2 size holes...if I'm not too enthusiastic...it works well.