Marking quilting lines

Just to let you know my experience. I used a lead pencil, it's sort of like a mechanical pencil, only the lead is very thick and I bought it at quilting store...but it's still just lead. I used it to mark on white. It came out just fine in the wash EXCEPT where I FMQ very tight, way too little stitches.....(.my bad, it was a first time FMQ)...... but everywhere else, it washed out, without a trace.

So before I washed it a second time, I rubbed a moistened bar of Fels Naptha soap on the stitches that were tightly covering the marks that didn't come out. VOILA and thank goodness, the marks came out and the white was white again!

I used the lead pencil on the white simply because I didn't have anything else that would show up or would mark smoothly. If I use it again, I won't be stitching teeny, tiny stitches over really heavy, dark markings. I was fortunate the soap took it out! Lesson learned!

I have been told that you need to watch what you mark with on "white on white" fabric. Most do not come out for some reason.