Pounce Pad Question
 

Thinking about trying a Pounce Pad to mark some baby quilts. Do you "pounce" the whole quilt at one time or just a section? I'll be putting the quilts on my Grace frame and quilting with a 9" throat Janome machine. I'm thinking a section at a time?? Also is there a color of Pounce chalk to stay away from? Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

yellow is usually no good in any kind of marker. green too for me. the pounce is supposed to be "wiped" over the stencil. didn't work for me. i pounced hard and that worked. i ended up giving my pounce away.

I struggle to get it to work, too. The demo makes it look so easy, but somehow at home it doesn't work out like that for me.

I started with the blue (wash off) chalk, but the action of sewing sort of "bounced" it all away. The white iron-off seems to stick a little better but it still just kind of vanishes from the movement of sewing.

I haven't figured out what I'm doing wrong, yet.

In the beginning, you have to "charge" the pad by banging it with the lid on pretty hard to get the powder flowing in the correct direction. Basically, when you see a good amount of powder start to show up on the pad, you should be ready to go. Before each swipe, you have to charge it again by banging it once or twice. Leah Day has a good demo video on Youtube.

I do find that I have to swipe/rub it back and forth a couple times over the stencil to get it to show well. I press down fairly firmly as I swipe. Maybe my eyes aren't that good. You need to hold the stencil down really well too, so that it doesn't shift while you swipe.

I mark small sections at a time, and after marking, I spray with spray hairspray. It seems to help set the powder long enough to quilt it. If you're having problems with your hopping foot bouncing the powder right off, you could try modifying your foot so that it hovers over the quilt sandwich like Leah Day does?

Yes, this^^. My sewing machine also made the chalk bounce off leaving only a faint outline that I couldn't follow. I'm having much better luck using Press and Seal and drawing on it through the stencil lines with a Crayola Ultra Washable.

don't use blue! I tried that and could not get it all out. Very diappointed

didn't like the pounce - just did not work no matter how many times I ran it across the quilt! much prefer the Mark-B-Gone pens. the markings come right out with cold water.

I have used Pounce successfully...
pounce first on a table...then wipe across the stencil...
spritzed a little water to prevent the chalk from bouncing off...
did a row at a time...
used the iron off type

I do not have a Pounce Pad, but I have heard you can accomplish the same thing with a foam type paint brush from the hardware store. I agree with the others who suggest doing a small section at a time.

That's what I did too, except that I've only used on one quilt that big-stitched by hand, The hairspray worked like a charm, and both it, and the chalk (I used the blue) came right out in the wash.

Did you use the Mark-B-Gone with the stencils meant for Pouncing?

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.

I also had that problem, but it was only in areas where I got a little heavy handed with the pouncing.

Pounce Pads
 

I LOVE my pounce pad! I use only the white powder that will iron away as the blue and pink should not be ironed at all. It is so easy to use. I fill the pad with the white powder (by the way, I would stay away from using talcum or baby powder as it is gummy), tap the pad on my hand a time or two, then run it across the stencil. It leaves a clear white mark that I can easily follow for quilting. I use it mainly on borders and mark only one or two sides at a time. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the pouncing system!

i typically only pounce registration marks, I use white only, with a foam paint brush (I keep the pounce chalk in a plastic tub and dip the brush and then knock it against the side) . Only mark what you will quilt on that part that you will quilt on that roll of the quilt .