I think I'm going to try the hairspray trick, I haven't tried that before. That just might do it! Do they still make Aqua-Net? LOL
I did have to pound the bejebus out of my pounce pads to get them started. I actually cheated a bit and set them on top of the dryer for a couple weeks and let that vibration help shake the chalk down into the pad. It helped, but still took a LOT of pounding to get it really going.
My FMQ foot is the type that "glides", rather than hopping - just the needle punching in and out of the fabric is enough to scatter the chalk lines! And of course I'd marked the whole quilt without testing anything when I discovered this. (One of these days, I will learn to test things before going whole-hog...)
I really want it to work, if for no other reason than I bought a bunch of those mesh screen stencils that I really like at a show a couple years ago, and they don't seem to work with anything else! I tried my precious blue pens and no joy there.