I used my 97D foot and engaged the Dual Feed system on my BERNINA. In those areas, ANY marking that showed up on the dark was absolutely invisible on the light splotchy areas. The marking problem with this grunge was the light splotches all over. No telling how that weakened the fibers…. That was a lot of muscle power! It literally wore me out. It was a pain to use – on this dark fabric I had to score 7 times on each line. It left a clear, thin mark that I will have no trouble getting out. The simple Hera marker, second from the top was the top pick. The water erasable on the bottom, barely visible on the dark fabric. This one was a close second, but left too wide of a mark no matter how well I shaved that point with a precision sharpener. My assessment of each marking system above: the top one, a ceramic marker by Bohin (there are other makers of ceramic markers), not sturdy enough to last many pushes of the quilt through the harp of the machine. Yes, I tried a white marker (muddled line), Crayola washables (none of the colors showed up on all of the fabric parts), Frixion (no way! I’m the one that wrote That Post about Frixion pens), quilting pencils (never had luck getting pencils out) and a variety of other notions. I tried a zillion things, only the ones that were even in the running are in the photo. It’s a fabulous fabric but in this particular color, a nightmare to mark: It sure helps to try to get that border grid marked properly.Įven worse, the fabric I chose was extremely difficult to mark: Grunge Basics by Moda. Try to mark on that!Ī notion I cannot live without: my 72″ steel carpenter’s ruler. At that point, the center of the quilt had been heavily quilted and the unquilted border was one floppy, wavy mess, see below. I did not decide until late in the game to grid the border and that is what created the problem. I have gridded the border, no small task and a first for me. I think I have way more that 10% of work left, but only a few decision areas left. I hold the notion that most times it’s the final 10% of your quilting decisions that make or break your quilt.

Growing up skipper pencil