Basketman

Before I recently discovered the joy of freezer paper, I used newsprint to paper piece and tried cutting it to a size that would allow me to print larger designs and to say it was a miserable failure would be an understatement! I even tried my local print shop and he failed too.

I recently bought a pack of Jenkins freezer paper but it is only letter size and I need larger and would like to use my own printer. I understand that you can staple "pages" together and needle imprint the design or trace with a light table as an alternate way to create patterns, but has anyone carefully cut legal size from a roll and actually got it to work on a consistent basis and not found it wadded up inside their copier?

Any tricks you care to share would be appreciated...pretty new to this technique and would love to hear from the pros!

mckwilter

I buy freezer paper by the roll at my local grocery store. I've only tried printing on fabric that was ironed to the freezer paper, and it worked relatively well. At least I didn't ruin DH's printer. I haven't tried printing on freezer paper that wasn't ironed to fabric, so I don't know how it would work. I do know that you must use an ink jet printer and you can't feed it through a photocopier.

tessagin

This is how I've done it. I only use letter or legal in my printer..Fabric has to be cut to exact size of letter or legal. I personally would rather use a light box/source and trace. then iron onto the fabric.

Basketman

Sorry if I implied that I wanted to print fabric attached to the paper...just worried if I cut legal size from grocery store roll that I will not get it perfect and jam my printer? I am also new to using this technique and paper piecing in general, but like that you do not need to tear away those annoying points and can use the pattern over and over, but there must be some tricks to this process and any help is greatly appreciated.

quilter711

I cut the grocery store freezer paper to just a smidgen smaller than the 8 1/2 x 11. Then placed the freezer paper on a regular piece on paper, used washable glue stick between the FP and copier paper at the end that would feed thru the copier first. This worked for me on a HP Photosmart printer. Hope this will help you - good luck!

ube quilting

I think, and this is not a sure thing, but, I have done FP through the copier, but only with fabric attached. I think the plastic would melt off the FP if done alone due to the high temperature in the copier, just a thought. The fbric creates a barrier for the plastic side of the paper. You have to be sure the freezer paper goes in with the paper side in the proper side up or down depending on the copier.

You could press a cloth to the paper and run it through the copier to print your pattern and then peel the fabric off and reuse it over and over. This is just a suggestion to try. I would hate to see you ruin the copier.

As far as cutting the paper to size, it should work as long as it is not to bib. A smidge to small should feed okay. I cut newsprint all the time to go through the copier and it is never perfect but works.

Another ? I would have is why not just use the newspaper to print your pattern and do the fold and sew process. I do it that way.
peace

roguequilter

because of a large group project i was working on in recent months, & because i usually draft my own patterns i wanted several copies of some that i could fuse the patch pattern pieces to the fabric for use in a method using technique similar to pp. after a few trial runs this is what worked ... and worked so perfectly it's a technique i will use frequently in future ..

use a piece of letter size copy paper, or whatever size your printer can handle, as a template and cut sheets of freezer paper, as many as needed. then, using mod heat setting on dry iron, gently tack the freezer paper to the printer paper around outside edges. don't iron on, just touch tip of hot iron in several spots. enough that they nest together nicely. then i feed one sheet at a time of this combo paper thru printer. works great every time. i first tried 25# wt as it's my preferred printer paper. too heavy to feed ..so i used some 20# i had on hand for another project. worked, & fed perfectly w/o smudges or wrinkling. do a couple practice runs to check how well your method of bonding the papers works for your printer.

Kitsie

Yes, get it from the supermarket in the foils and wraps section. Reynolds is 18" wide. With a hot iron, lay the sheet of FP on a normal sheet of paper, iron across the top inch or so. Feed into printer ironed edge first and voila!

madamekelly

I have had good luck by ironing two layers together with my iron, then feeding it through the cannon printer. Works great and no paper jam.

maviskw

I don't know if this answers your question, but it may give you some ideas about paperless paper piecing.

We have done this. It works great.

1. The woman who showed us how to do it used a card to fold the paper. I think the seam ripper scoring works better. The fold lines are straighter and more accurate.

2. We used good quality copy paper; any good typing paper will work.

3. Glue stick is what is used to adhere the copy paper to the fabric. Works slick. Paper pulls off easily and washes out of the finished product.

4. One of my friends used her pattern 20 times.

5. The add-a-quarter ruler is nice, but you don't need it. You can measure that seam with any ruler. There is also an add-an-eighth ruler for when you are doing really small stuff.