The paper is a Great way to use as a guide to cut the fabric into a strip. Just face the paper up, line up your longest ruler along the edge and cut away. It's a great tip!

if you just sew small strips of fabric together in a long strip, you more than likely won't be able to keep them straight and you will end up with a very wonky strip. The paper is a stailizer for small pieces but also keeps you straight. Use smaller than normal stitches when sewing and then if need be you can run a seam ripper along the seams to make it easier to tear the paper off. I have also found rolls of fax paper that you can find in second hand stores, as most fax machines no longer use it, a great thing to use in designing borders. Just cut to the length of your border and fold in half, quarters, etc to design your borders in equal sections

Paper from an old telephone book is much easier to tear off and the lines of writing help to keep the strips straight. I use pieces cut lenthwise on the page to the width I want the border to be and sew the paper strips together when I run out of the last strip. It's also lighter weight than the adding machine tape and rolls neater as you work.

You need a foundation when sewing like this and it keeps them flat

You could but remember these are scraps so many of them will be off grain or outright biases. If you don't stabilize them they are likely to go wonky on you and the blocks will not be square and the sides will not measure the same. It really saves time and temper to take the time to stabilize them.

thanks for sharing that great idea! I used to recycle my adding machine tape but I just rerolled it and sent it though my adding machine on the other side!

Thrifty idea..I love to re use

Couldn't you sew two rolls together side by side if you wanted wider? Maybe with a long zig zag and old needle? For a wider strip of paper I mean.

I don't know if that would work, give it a try and let us know. I have kept the strip of paper that EQS puts in their bolt of wadding, it's about 4" wide. If stitching them together is a pain why not cut up something like old Yellow pages, they are thin, and free :thumbup: