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