I always had a problem with marking on dark fabric but I found the perfect product. FONS & PORTER makes a mechanical pencil with white lead. It's wonderful. The JoAnn's by me is closing & they had everything in the store on sale, so I was looking at the quilting stuff and I found it. I'm making a Halloween quilt and I needed to cut out black cats and bats. It worked great. I have had a regular pencil with white lead but it broke easily and needed to be sharpened often. Someone else had posted something about the mechanical pencil and raved about it and it deserves the praise. This is my favorite tool right now.