When Pink Chalk Works Best

One of the questions I often hear is "Which color chalk should I use on my quilt?" or, "If I were to buy one color chalk, which would be best?" Let's get to some answers!

Looking at the star blocks above, they are both marked with the Pink Chalk. The pink is a better choice on the bluish purple and white block because the blue chalk would only be visible on the white fabric. The Pink Chalk offers a higher contrast.

On the pink and white block, Blue Chalk would also be a good choice because it offers higher contrast. The chalk that offers the highest contrast is the best choice. And when you're marking motifs, you can choose differently for each block if necessary.

The two nine-patch blocks are marked with both colors of chalk. The blue looks more visible on the light-colored center block, but the pink does a great job everywhere else.

If you are faced with what seems to be a tie, pick the one where the greatest amount of the best color choice is used. In this case, both the Pink and Blue Chalk work nicely.

A lot of this boils down to personal preference. I tend to stick to using blue on white fabrics. To me, it's more visible. Some of you may like the pink on whites because it doesn't go on very heavy, but you can still see the line.

Surprisingly, the Pink Chalk marking on this pink fabric shows up very well!

Pink marks darks very well!

You can see there are many variables to consider when choosing the best chalk color for a quilt. I only showed a few examples here, but hopefully they help take some of the mystery out of the decision.

Where Pink Chalk really shines is on light-colored fabrics paired with blues, greens, and purples. In fact, that is exactly why we added Pink to our line of Pounce Pad chalks in the first place.

For years, we offered only Blue and White Chalks, but we discovered a group of colors that neither handled especially well. That group was pastels. Light purples, blues, and greens, especially, could be difficult to mark with Blue Chalk, and White Chalk often didn’t show clearly enough either. Pink solved that problem beautifully.

For mixed-print fabrics like the example at the very top, both colors may work reasonably well, even if neither earns a perfect A+. At that point, it often comes down to personal preference.

And yes, sometimes I use both colors on the same quilt! I’ll secure the stencil, use one chalk where it shows best, then carefully use the second color in other areas without moving the stencil. I don’t do that too often because the colors can contaminate each other on the pad, but it can work very well.

I hope this has helped make choosing chalk colors a little easier for your next project!

The stencil I'm using in these illustrations is #31027 Intersecting Nine Patch. It's a great stencil for Irish Chains and many 9" finished blocks.