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What is best to use to mark the quilt design on the quilt so you know where to quilt? Thanks!

There are many ways you can choose.

I have used stencils with pounce powder (white only, others have had problems with the colors not coming out), there are the air erasable pens, water erasable markers, I have used washable kids markers (they may need more soaking to remove) There are chalk pencils, again watch and test the colors first.

I like the Sewline pencils.

Lisa

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LisaP8,

If its straight lines I'm wanting to make I use the blue painter's tape.. Its reusable too

It would depend on whether you are marking the whole quilt at once or marking as you go. Chalk probably wouldn't last if you marked the whole quilt first. I also like the sewline pencils. sandy

I like soap slivers and WASHABLE Crayola Markers...just make sure they say washable.It depends on the project as to what I use.

I agree with a couple of others that the Sewline mechanical pencils are good to use with stencils. Many of my older handquilting friends use plain old #2 pencils because they have trouble seeing anything else - works great until you try to remove the marks!

I found that eBay is a good place to get the Sewline pencils and refills at decent prices.

I also like the washable crayola markers, but TEST IT FIRST!

I had no luck with the pounce pads.

Lisa

I bought one of the Sewline pencils and two colors of leads. Then I bought a cheaper mechanical pencil from Wal-Mart that takes the same size lead to use for one of the colors so I don't have to switch colors in the Sewline one. Works just fine!

Again, I brought a topic back to life. Ricky Tims just showed photocopying the design to get extra copies onto his Stable Stuff and stitched it on with dissolvable thread (water soluble) and then dampening it but the bobbin has marked the top where you have to quilt. Does anyone do this method and if so do you recommend it?

Bumping up for input!

Ricky stitches twice that way? Trying to picture it.

Last time I did FMQ, I wanted certain shapes here & there (like a "flower with petals" shape). I simply cut those shapes out of notebook paper & stuck them onto the quilt with blue painter's tape underneath. I winged it between shapes, but when I got to a shape, I had a paper guide to stitch around. I cut the flowers slightly smaller than I wanted their finished size to be, so I wouldn't sew through the paper. That was all the marking or "training wheels" I needed to get the quilted shapes I wanted. Very easy to do, and left no marks or threads to deal with later.

But speaking of marking pencils, I recently found that Dritz has a green & white one, white "lead," with a built-in eraser. The white lines show up easily on dark things but erase very well with the eraser. I've switched to using it for most of my marking while sewing.

Thank you StarrySky that's a fantastic tip. I have a child's quilt that I need to get started quilting on although DD doesn't want it for the baby quilt gift she needed. Maybe I can sell it?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Auntie Reba,

You can also cut freezer paper into the quilting shapes that you want, press them on to the quilt.

Freezer paper is a great idea! Unfortunately, my hands reached for paper & tape first (freezer paper is on the other side of the sewing room...) and my brain thought, "Problem solved!" -- so it shut down and went back to sleep!