If you enjoy piecing by hand, using a template, or appliqué by hand or machine,
then you may find this tip helpful.

Use a mechanical, (propelling) pencil with 2b leads for all your marking.

This softer darker lead shows up well on fabric and paper with a fine line.

Normal pencils as they get blunter, leave a thick line. This means your cutting
can be less accurate and lead to much distortion over the width and length of your
finished quilt top.

Further more mechanical pencils never need to be sharpened!