Does it really matter which paper piecing paper you use?

Confusing, isn't it?

You have several kinds of paper piecing paper on the market to choose from. Newsprint. Vellum. Freezer papers. Water soluble stabilizers.

Then there's those non-woven something-or-others.

Are they really all that different?

Newsprint

What's not to love?

These newsprint options are light-weight and opaque. Easy to remove, readily available, relatively cheap and printable—usually.

All the qualities we're looking for.

My printer doesn't have a tray for the legal size, so I feed that through one sheet at a time for the best results.

However, my experience is it does want to curl a bit when it gets humid outside—though the packaging reads 'no curling'.

My solution is to store it flat with something on top to weigh it down during the summer months—a like-sized ream of printer paper does the job—especially if plans don't include using it in the near future.

I tend to buy 4-5 at a time from Amazon to keep on hand so I don't run out. (This is my stash right now.)

You can frequently find it with a Prime seller so shipping is included in the price. 

I confidently recommend this product to anyone interested in paperpiecing.

If you're budget conscious, though, I'd give it a try. If it works for you, you'll save a lot of dough.

If it doesn't, then you could re-purpose it as either:

• Cheap coloring paper for your kids, grandkids, students, or
• Cheap paper for string piecing projects

For the purposes of the test below, I had my girlfriend try to get it through her printer.

Wouldn't you know it!

It worked.

The first time.

She's got an HP 5055 Envy. I'd hate to have to go buy another printer to use this.

Vellum

This is a translucent product is made from cellulose fibers.

Did you know that it's the absence of air between the fibers that makes it semi-transparent?

I didn't.

If money were no object, this would be my top choice. Hands down. 

You can see through it, making it quite easy to position patches. 

No problems putting it through either of my printers.

Tears like a dream...the best/easiest tearing of all the papers I've used.

Non-Woven Stabilizer-like

This feels a bit more like a non-woven interfacing if you're familiar with that product.

Water Soluble Stabilizer

This type of stabilizer literally 'melts away' in water...with a bit of swishing.

I stitched another sample with lighter fabrics to check and there is a bit of darkness to my white piecing thread that is from the printed line.

Both images are a bit bigger than life-size.

Click here to see it from the front side where it's not noticeable.

Click here to see if from the back side where it is.

Does it actually dissolve in water?

Yes, almost instantly.

The directions do recommend removing the bigger portions (the easy stuff) before immersing, but it literally starts dissolving the nano-second water hits it.

What's not to love?

The price.

At the time of this writing, a 12-sheet package is available on Amazon with Prime shipping for $7.55 which equates to 63¢ a sheet.

Too rich for my pocketbook EVEN if I don't have to tear away the paper.

The other consideration is prewashing or checking for bleeding fabric. Since you get the stabilizer wet to remove all the bits, you'll want to know that your fabric won't bleed when wet.

The most surprising thing?

It was almost as easy as the Simple Foundations vellum paper to tear away and left very few 'bits' in the seams or points of the angles when I tore it away.

There is a bit of discoloration on the 'paper' as you press. This did not cause any problems.

Precut Freezer Paper

One of the most useful tools to have in your quilting studio.

You can use it for templates—to either applique with or machine quilt around—for protecting your ironing board, for stencils to transform your fabrics.

And you can use it for paper piecing.

My first introductions to it were in a couple of patterns by Eileen Sullivan of the The Quilt Designers Workshop fame. In particular, "English Roses" and "Sunflower Quilt".

It's the hardest to tear away of all the options, because:

• It's a heavier weight than all the others

• It has a plastic coating on one side, a blessing and a curse

The best feature of this product is when you press a patch open after stitching, the plastic semi-melts and holds the patch firmly in position.

No patches folded over on themselves during stitching to rip and re-sew. For projects with lots of odd-shaped patches this is a God-send.

You'll be pressing from the plastic side to press your patches open. Don't put your hot iron on the plastic or you'll have a bit of a mess to deal with.

Be mindful that you need to peel the pattern off the ironing board after pressing the first patch into place. That's just how freezer paper works, it won't lose the plastic.

The downside of the plastic coating is you can't print this in a laser printer. NOT EVER. The heat from the laser melts the plastic and messes up your printer. FOR GOOD. Inkjets only!

You'll also want to check to see which side goes up in your printer so that you don't accidentally print on the plastic side...the ink will smear right off of the plastic.  (I put a Post-It® note on the top of my printer to remind me.)

While you could buy it on a roll in your local grocery store, you'd then be stuck cutting it to size and then dealing with the curling.

I don't know about you, but I get antsy to start my new projects. The extra messing around would be painful.

The good news is that it comes in pre-cut packages. Because the prep work is done for you, it is more expensive than the newsprint alternatives shared above.

Copy or Printer Papers

There is nothing wrong with using the paper from your printer for paperpiecing. Nothing.

It's readily available, cheap and reliable and easy to print on.

It's short-coming is that it's generally not as easy to tear away from your stitches. At least not without running the risk of damaging them.

If you're piecing simple units like the pairs of Flying Geese in an Arrowhead quilt block or Square in a Square (click each to find links to print either of those patches), removing the paper should be pretty straight forward.

Tweezers may come in handy getting those little leftover bits out of the inside points of sharper angles.

Other than that there should be no real problems.

However, if your planned project has lots of tiny (acute) angles then one of the other newsprint or vellum options would make better use of your valuable quilting time.

Don't use a premium, heavy weight version...get the lightest weight (it's measured in 'lbs') to make it easier to tear away.

The proof is in the pudding...

Each of the paperpieced Birds in the Air units below were stitched by me in the same sitting with the same fabrics, a 50 wt Aurifil thread (needle and bobbin) with an 80/12 needle and a stitch length of 1.4.

There is no backstitching at the edges on any of the blocks.

From the front, can you tell which product was used?

The light background fabric is one of my favorites—Grunge by Moda—and it varies a bit across the patches.

What about from the back?

See anything that looks not-good-enough?

Here's your chance to look even closer.

Which paper piecing paper will you choose?

In person, there is no difference on the front side of any of the sample blocks. Once the paper was removed there is no way to tell them apart.

With that information in mind, it comes down to the combination of characteristics we discussed at the beginning.

If money were no object, I'd choose Simple Foundations—the vellum product. But since I do quilt on a budget and use a ton of it, my go-to choice is Carol Doak's Foundation Paper.

When you've chosen the perfect paper piecing paper for YOUR needs, click here to find all the free block patterns from this site that use paperpiecing.

Download with my compliments.