Hello all, Mary Ellen here.

When groups of quilters get chatting about their art, the conversation will often come around to favorite methods for marking. Chalks? pens? pencils? markers? Do the marks come out?…

Mark Lipinski, an infamous quilting male, has done a series of tests on an assortment of marking tools and has posted his results at his facebook page. I like the way he structured his testing, and found the results interesting. If marking your quilts is a bugaboo for you, you might be interested in what he has found. Click here.

I like crayola products when I absolutely must mark on the fabric. I generally try to avoid having to mark in areas that will be seen, because of the lack of confidence in being able to totally remove the markings later on. I must say though that I have done some “severe” marking with Crayola washable markers (dark purple marker onto light yellow fabric) and had the markers completely wash away (in the washer). My main “issue” with the markers is the inability to draw very fine lines. I would not ever recommend those markers to folks who don’t want to put the completed quilt through a wash cycle. They will not come out totally just by dabbing!

Like so many of our quilting techniques and tricks, the best bet is to try several and see what works for you, your style and your tools.

Feel free to share your favorite marking tools that you have had success with, and those tools which you think are not successful as well.