Lately I’ve been stitching Heart of Christmas by Stoney Creek, which has some sections with lots of “confetti stitches” (different colors scattered about throughout a section, rather than in larger blocks of color).  To keep my place and have a counting reference as I stitch, I find it’s helpful to mark up the pattern as I go, but I’m curious how other folks do this.  First, of course, I make a copy of the pattern so I’m not marking up the original… just in case.  In the past I’ve used pencil, but that can be difficult to see.  Using pens or markers I would not being able to erase mistakes. One thing I haven’t tried is a colored pencil.  That would be inexpensive, but more difficult to erase and also less visible than a marker or highlighter.  This time I tried an erasable highlighter made by Pilot.  I bought it at 123stitch.com, though I’ve seen them on Amazon as well (for a bit more $).  Here’s what I think so far:

Pros:

• Very bright, easy to see – I have pink, but they come in other colors as well
• The tip makes it easy to mark in small areas – even individual stitches on a pattern or to draw a fine line to mark a backstitch or outline a section
• It is erasable, so if you make a mistake in your marking, you can correct it
• Reasonably priced at a few dollars each (at least in the U.S. – not sure how available it may be in other places)

Cons:

• While it does well for erasing a small area, erasing a large area would be difficult.  It takes friction to erase, so it’s a bit more work than erasing a pencil mark
• It doesn’t erase completely and does leave a faint mark.  I think this is fine for this purpose, but I wouldn’t want to mark up an original pattern and then expect to completely wipe it clean

I have only used it a few weeks so far, so no telling how long the ink will last before it runs out.

I’m curious though – does anyone have other tips for keeping your place in a pattern like this?

Marking a pattern with highlighter.

Erasing a section.