*Updated* Sewing Fabric Scraps Onto Strips of Paper (calculator paper) Requested Video

hey guys it's robin r silent crash and welcome to my craft room i recently had a request to show how i sew the scraps of fabric onto the calculator tape i do have a video that's about two years old but i thought it'd be nice to go ahead and do an updated video i've changed the way i do it just a little bit and it never hurts to go ahead and go over it again and give a refresher i get questions every week about why i do this and why i don't do that and what's the point of doing this and all that stuff so i thought we'd have a little fun today and just sew some scraps towards the end of the video there'll be some links up in the icard which is usually up in the upper right hand corner of this video and it'll be different videos on the different types of things that we've been doing with the calculator strips i'll put up a playlist and stuff like that and if you don't have this paper or you don't want to buy the 30 rolls that usually come with or 10 rolls or whatever then i have a video on different papers and different options you can do with it and just other random scrappy calculator paper stuff that's up there i'm going to use this roll this one is two and a quarter i like it would be really nice if these rolls came at two and a half like i said although i can make my own strips of paper it would be nice if they were two and a half since that's what we use in the quilting world but you could always go ahead and use this this one's three and a quarter and then just cut it down to two and a half when you trim it up yes you're going to waste some paper and yes you're going to waste some scraps but these are like the bottom of the barrel scraps the ones that you maybe a lot of people will throw away and not use or that they're just going to sit somewhere in a drawer for a while or maybe use them for string blocks or something like that so if you go ahead and use waste a little bit of it off it'll be okay you can always use those pieces for something else to use them in a crumb block or to put them in a pillow case a stuffed toy a pincushion whatever a pet bed i hear that a lot now the way i used to do it as you can see here is i used to leave the fabric and the paper all left in a roll i really love the look of just the paper rolled up with the fabric on it but i've come to realize for me that sewing on the paper while still on the roll gets a little annoying you can put it in the back your machine but you're constantly having to roll it you can put it in a basket there's a lot of solutions that you can come up with but for me i'm just going to go ahead and take strips of the paper you can use any length you want i usually cut mine probably around 13 to 14 so that way i can have a 12 and a half inch strip for that size block and i just cut the paper off sometimes i will roll it in the opposite direction or you know like rub it on the side of a table or something just to get it so it lays a little bit flat and i'm not dealing with it constantly curling up or with the fan blowing it around everywhere i realized one day that why bother dealing with having this always rolling and having to move it and being in my way it's not too bad if you have a lot of room in the throat of your machine but i thought well well it does look really cool all wrapped up on the paper like this and i enjoy that look i can easily just go ahead and do it in strips like this i can chain piece and do one right after the other maybe that's what we'll do today we'll do a little chain piecing just so you can get an idea of what that looks like and as you can see my papers aren't even the same length that's going to be fine because what i can do if i still want it all rolled up and looking cool after i sew on all of my strips i can go ahead and just put my strips together sew them together like i would a regular piece of fabric for a quilt block and i'll go ahead and i'll have that long strip anyways but i find that this is much easier to store there we'll save it from the fan it's much easier to store them in different containers and bins and ziploc baggies or whatever you're using to store your scraps and fabrics and stuff to go ahead and just leave it in a short strip like this then i can just lay them in the bin and if i just want to say today i only want to work on blue fabrics i can do all different blues on here and then i won't have to do the entire roll like so if this one roll has blue on it well now i can't use that if i want to do a green quilt right but if i just cut the strips off i can do all my different blues i can do rainbow quilts and i'll just have that paper separated like that so it'll be a lot easier to do in small bits small chunks of time and easier to use in my future projects now today we are going to go totally scrappy and let's talk a little bit about basics first i have my paper do i change my needle every time i work on this project not really i have been doing a lot of fabric postcards i've been doing needle books i've been sewing on random things like when i do the fabric postcards my needle goes through the fabric the batting and it goes through a piece of thick cardboard so i am dulling my needle i am not doing any major quilts or large or any types of quilts right now i'm just mostly playing with scraps and making small projects so my needle doesn't have to be exceptionally sharp going through the constant paper all the time will dull it this paper is really thin i can almost see through it when i hold it up to the light and stuff like that so while it will dull it it won't be too bad you can take this needle out maybe put it in a special little pin cushion where you put any of your dull or used needles i like to put a small piece of felt in my little needle container where i keep my new needles and i write paper on it so that if i want to use it for paper piecing over and over again i can take my nice brand new sharp needle out and put this one in right now i just leave it in because as i said i'm not doing a quilt if i were to go ahead and start working on a quilt right now i would want to take this needle out and i want a sharp needle i want a sharp rotary cutter blade and a sharp needle and i want to have everything my machine clean and when i do a quilt i just start out completely fresh so that i'm not going to have any stress and problems small little projects like this if i get a little bird's nest of fabric or if my needle gets a little dull it's little bitty bits of two and a quarter inch wide strips of scrap fabric i'm not going to worry about it normally i use whatever's left in any random bobbins i might have but today i have a spool of brown thread and a brown bobbin to match it mostly because i've been using brown as a neutral lately i have several spools of brown that was given to me so i'm just go ahead and use those it works for a lot of these projects i don't tend to sew with very light colored fabrics and bunches of whites or anything and if i do have a little bit and the color shows it's going to be such a small little spot that i'm not going to worry about it so use whatever thread you want but projects like this are great for using up that last little bit that's on a bobbin i chose to use a full bobbin today instead of little small scraps of thread because i don't want to take the time to constantly change it out i want to go ahead and kind of make this as smooth as we can today but that's a great way to use them up i also don't have too many bobbins right now with only little bits on it i am using a quarter inch seam the seam is really insignificant you just want to be consistent all the way through if you're used to using a quarter inch while doing quilts that's great you can go ahead and use a 3 8 if you want it's all going to depend on how wide your fabric is and how wide you want your seam to be now when i put my machine on a quarter inch in automatic it goes to a 2.0 stitch length and i like that for paper piecing because it's nice and tight in a small stitch this is really thin paper i'm not using you know like computer paper or anything like that so this paper tears really easily and at a 2.0 stitch length it's going to go ahead and perforate it and tear it nicely for me the other question i get asked a lot is why why robin why are you taking your time and spending all your energy and wasting materials or whatever to sew on paper why not just sew your strips one by one because i'm a wonky person i draw wonky lines i can't draw a straight line i can't sew a straight line anything i do always ends up just a bit wonky and i need to trim it down if i were to take a whole bunch of two and a half inch strips let's say rectangles because a lot of times we're doing rectangles so if they're like two and a half by four inches and i try to sew them all together to make a piano key border the border always ends up wavy even my starting line where i try to eat lay everything nice and even it always ends up a little caddy wonker so i have to trim that up then i had to measure over to my shortest one and i had to trim it there so where i started out at that four four and a half inch you know um width or whatever a lot of times it ends up down to three and a half three and three quarters and it now has changed my project a lot of times i don't go specifically where i need a three inch strip of fabric i go hey this looks good here i'm going to put it on i'm a very fluid quilter i don't follow too many patterns i just kind of wing it as i go and it works for me so that's my main reason is my borders on both sides this way i get nice straight edges when i trim it i flip it over and i trim it right along on the paper everything's nice and even and even with this one if i want this to be two and a half inches and it's only two and a quarter if i make sure that i have extra fabric on either side i can go ahead and either trim right along this edge and then at two and a half inches or i can just kind of find a quarter inch you know i think for something like this at two and a quarter i would need what an eighth of an inch on either side that would be good idea to trim it all the way up straight on this side and then trim this side at whatever length you want so i can go ahead and have extra fabric hanging over the edge like i usually do and i can cut this at two and a half inches and it works out fine that way this is very flexible and fluid it's just one of those projects that it's for a rainy day when you're in between other projects and you're waiting for your fabric to come for your big christmas quilt and you just want to sew and not have to think it's a good project and it does use up some scraps i have several videos where i show how to tear off the paper i'll do a quick little demonstration at the end of this video but it's really easy you just i'll show you just hold it and tear it off i've done it many many times it'll also be in the link in the i card on the videos so let's go ahead and get started on actually sewing onto this paper if you have any extra questions go ahead and leave them down in the comments and i will answer them and if i need to you know me i'll just go ahead and do another video to show you what it looks like so i have my extra paper to the side so i'm going to start sewing here and i'm just going to keep sewing down this way i have this bin of random scraps i wrote on a container it says thin strips on there but i'm just putting a little bit of everything if you want all of your strips to be exact go ahead and start and make sure you have maybe take your ruler and make your first line here so everything's all parallel and perpendicular and everything's all right angles me if it gets wonky i'm okay with wonky lay your fabrics down so that they're extra wonky or if you just accidentally a little bit wonky i don't mind accidentally a little bit wonky that kind of works in any project for me if i go super wonky then maybe i want to do it as a piano keyboarder around wonky houses or something like that as you can see my strips are extra long that is not a problem if you have shorter strips it works great too i used to sit and as i was cutting up my scraps i would make them short enough to go onto my paper strips but then i realized that's just taking extra time i can go ahead and trim it as i come here so like i could put this piece down i'm going to lay it right sides up i can go all the way almost to the end i just want to make sure my stitch line is on the paper i'm going to leave a little extra at the top it's looking like about a half inch there leave some extra at the bottom i can trim it now or trim it later so let's do a little bit of both i will trim this one now now i'm leaving i don't know if you could see the paper there i'm leaving extra on both sides so that if i do want to do a two and a half inch strip i can go ahead and do it i'm just going to slide it down leave about a quarter inch or so up top kind of make sure it's sort of almost straight no big deal not worrying about it i'm going to take this extra bit now i can either add it into the strip or i'm just going to set it down on the side on my table and i can add it in later on or make sure i don't use this fabric again totally up to you so here's a fun fabric that i can use over and over it's got the like the sugar skulls on it and it has different designs so as i use this it's going to be it'll blend into with everything else because it does have the black and purple little checkers here and stuff but if i put just this one on i'm going to get the skull if i put this one on i'm going to get the flower and a little wiggly line so it's a great one to use in a variety of places so i'm going to place these two right sides together make sure that i have fabric going past both edges of the paper i'm going to stitch a quarter inch seam [Music] i do not back tack at the beginning or end i'm going to be trimming it off anyways so whatever stitches are going to be at the edge it's going to be more into the center so i can't really back tack unless i'm specifically looking exactly where the paper in a backpack there i've never had a problem with anything coming apart and if it does you can always just restitch the line later on remember this is just one of those no brainer things that we're just doing just to spend some time with our fabric and the sewing machine using up some scraps and even if you don't use this strips of scrappy paper now well who knows maybe two years from now as it's sitting in a bin you decide oh i've got the perfect you know strips of fabric for this project now don't even give me any trouble about saying oh robin we can't wait two years because i know many of you have fabric that's in your stash that is much older than two years and i bet you got some single quilt blocks that you tried out that didn't use sitting in a bin somewhere in your craft room that you haven't used for several years also okay so i trimmed the first one down to the size of my paper a little past my paper as i was going now this one i've already sewn it so i can come in here and i can just go ahead and trim it wherever i want i go ahead and finger press mine if you're going for specifics and you want a certain length and you want everything to be nice and perfect you might want to have one of those little palm irons next to you at your station here so that you can just go ahead and give it a nice press if mine overlaps a little and it just folds over and doesn't match the seam perfectly as i iron it and then sew it into the project it's all going to work out anyways plus i'll quilt it so then i just go back into my bin see what i got oh let me show you this piece i have this piece of fabric i did not trim this down at all because i knew i would just go ahead and use it wherever it's a little narrower here and then it gets wider here you can go ahead and use this wider piece you could trim it down or i can just go ahead and use this piece here at this point now your first one was right sides up everyone else is going to be right sides down a little bit extra fabric on both sides trim off that extra finger press it and then we're just going to keep going i'm going to put one more on here and then we'll go ahead and do the chain piecing since i'm in my random strip bin i never know what size strips i'm going to pull out of here it could be anything you know skinny fat oh this one has a lot of skinny on it so the ends are too skinny for what i want to do today i just want to use something in the center so i'm going to go ahead and cut it here kind of cut it there then i can use this piece yeah i could have waited until i put it on here to trim it up because now i have a little extras hanging over the edge but that will work for a crumb block later on anyway once again i gave it that nice little trim finger press it and now let's go ahead and start doing some chain piecing a lot of times when i'm doing scraps i like to chain piece in groups of five or ten just cuz no real reason you can do i'm going to show you how to do just two of them and you can alternate them over and over again or you can have several strips that you're doing at the same time if you're doing a rainbow one you can do your blue strip and your red strip and your yellow strip that way you're working on all of your colors at the same time and then everything will basically be done at the same time now because i'm using these long strips there's going to be an extra step but if you had strips that were already about three inches long it'd be a little bit easier so i'm going to start by sewing and i'm going to stop i'm going to trim my fabric where i think i need it to be i'm going to go ahead and stitch right off the edge there now normally if i'm chain piecing i already have one two three four five pieces on i would have five pieces on this one also but i don't so it'll be okay since i already have this fabric out i'm gonna go ahead and start with this at the beginning give it a little bit of a trim i can add in new colors i can use old fabrics that are already in that one it doesn't really matter either way yes i am digging through my bin i say not to dig through but i see certain things that these aren't sort at all like this one has pink flamingos all over it i would rather put this into a zipper pouch or a i don't know maybe a postcard or something so i am choosing not to put it into my scrappy strip so yes i am kind of peeking through a little bit and deciding what i want to use and what i don't want to use so i have this green fabric it's even got little cuts taken out of it it's not even at all i've got a nice thinner end down here that i'm going to use i can put my two pieces together trim them like that and then lay them on my paper yes you are going to use up some extra thread doing this especially if you're only doing one with all the starting and stopping but maybe use that neon pink thread that really weird olive green one that you had to buy especially to do a special quilting for someone that wanted it and then you never use it again go ahead and use that in your top thread so if you waste a little bit it's not anything you're going to use anyways and it'll be okay or if you're one of those people that started out with the walmart special thread and now you've graduated and moved up into your orophil and your gutermin or something that you really enjoy sewing with you can go ahead and sew these scrappy projects with that you are yes you are sewing the fabric together and it can be an issue if you're worried about the quality of the thread but that thread has gone through many quilts for me when i first started quilting it's gone through the wash and ironing kids drag it around and it's done really well i think for little quilting scrappy projects like this i think it'll be okay because you're also going to go ahead and quilt on top of it which is going to add extra structure to the project but whatever works for you maybe you have one of those spools of thread that has not enough to worry about doing a whole line like if you're putting on borders or something you don't have enough thread left on the spool go ahead and throw it on here do a few lines like that and get rid of it you're not wasting it and it's being used and you know you're going to turn it into a project later on or you just have to accept the fact that it does use a little bit of thread go ahead and i trimmed off that first one that i was working on i can fold my little strip back i got threads everywhere pick my next fabric maybe i want to still use that green because it's kind of fun now for these i would either start quilt it start sewing it and then trim it or i'm just going to trim it here so it stays out of my way and i did not my needle is still in the down position i haven't cut my thread or anything like that and i'm just going to go ahead and start sewing on the next one now if there was a third strip for me to just keep going as if i was doing my five or ten of them at a time i would just keep going to the end but i don't have that many but if i did and i had all of them sewn i would leave this one on the machine and i would just clip off whatever is up here and even if this had seven more attached i can either individually clip them apart or i can just leave them together and just go ahead and sew on my next one i would just fold this one add some hearts to it whoop gotta make sure i go past the paper trim it off and then when i get to here i would take my next piece i would fold my fabric and give it a little finger press and move on now if you were doing this and you wanted to use your iron at each step i would do all five or ten strips cut my thread i could take them over and i can individually separate them if it's easier for you to give them a good pressing that way or leave them all connected whatever works for you just like with string blocks it's about the same theory i would press them all and then i would come back here now when i do string blocks i do like to do like i said in groups and i like to give them a good press with a nice steamy iron those i like to lay nice and flat i don't want to have any weird bunching or bubblings but this little stuff i'm just going to leave it i'm going to go ahead and sew on these for a little bit and then i will show you how to take the papers off now normally i would go ahead and fill this all the way up i did take it over to my iron i gave it a good press i steamed it everywhere so if any of these seams were a little bit loose i want to make sure everybody's down and flat i'm going to go ahead and just trim this off because as i said if i wanted this to be longer i can just take these two pieces afterwards i'll show you when and do it but i want to show you how i trim it and then we'll go ahead and take the papers off now i do trim my strips before i store them away this side i'm going to line it up directly with the paper even just a little bit past would be fine i want to look here and see that i have fabric all at the two and a half inch so if i need to go a little bit further over i can but i want to make sure i line that edge of the paper up with these lines on my ruler so here's a quarter inch pass so that i know i can always line it up there and then just trim at two and a half here i can just add an eighth of an inch there as we talked about before i just want to make sure generally my paper is straight so i'm going to check to make sure it didn't get any wonky ways while i was stitching i'm going to trim it off leaving that eighth of an inch on the side this for me is total scrap it's going to go in the strap bin i'm not going to use it i don't make dog beds are our shelters and stuff here do not like dog beds they prefer like blankets and they don't like them stuffed like that they don't want any type of pillow they like they like blankets and maybe old quilts and stuff like that so then i'm gonna line up at two and a half inches because that's what i want for my strip here i'm lining it up on that little bit of fabric i left on the side of the paper otherwise i would line it up right at the paper and i can trim off all of this extra and then i know that i have a two and a half inch strip then i can use like a jelly roll in any project so any project that calls for two and a half inch strip that you don't mind it being scrappy like this you can go ahead and use it if i were made this all in blues i seem to be in a blue mood today if i made this all in blues and my project called for a two and a half inch jelly roll strip of blue fabric i can go ahead and use all my scraps this one's a bit scrappier and crazier the way i like it so you're not set into one color looks like it got a little thread or something there so that's how that is now normally i would go ahead and take this and i would put it into my bins and i would store it just like that the paper is not archival the paper can cause some type of damage to your fabric if you're concerned about that you can go ahead and remove the paper and that is perfectly fine also sometimes i do that it all depends on if i know i'm going to use it soon or i'm going to store it for a long time if i leave this on the paper there's not going to be any issues i can pick it up and i can try it out different projects i'm not messing with any type of bias i'm not stretching any edges i'm not causing any issues if you want to pull that paper out ahead of time you can always do a stay stitch about an eighth of an inch in on each side and that will help hold your bias in there i would just be careful handling however you decide to store it so let's go ahead and take the paper off now the paper coming off is like i said it's really easy we used a smaller stitch length so it perforated the paper the paper is thin it's not like scrapbooking paper or anything like that i can go through if i want i can fold it on the stitching lines i can give it a big tug there's a various ways to do it i just kind of put my thumb right here by the stitch line take my left hand and i just kind of hold i'm holding really tight with my right hand so that i'm not pulling the thread out even though i'm not holding right onto that seam i'm just close enough that i'm pulling the paper more out of the thread than i am pulling the seams up then while holding on to the next seam i just take my thumb and give it a little pull down a little tug and then this will pop right out i did have a couple stitches left there so i had to work it you can fold it over if you want it once you get it started it usually goes pretty easy this is a good thing to do while you're sitting there watching movies and tv and stuff like that listen to an audio book give it to the kids to pull apart if you do paper piecing already then you're used to having to pull paper out there you go and everything is nice and straight i have a couple pieces like this one's wider here and narrower there which makes everybody a little wonky but it's not crazy wonky so i think this will work fine in any type of project that i want put it on my fabric postcard i can turn it into a tote bag add it to pillows quilts really like as i said it is now considered a piece of two and a half inch strip fabric it's a part of a jelly roll use it anywhere you want to use at two and a half inch strip of fabric you might not easily be able to cut a square out of it or something but if you need something that uses a strip you're good to go and you can make your strip any width you want so i hope i answered everyone's questions if any new ones came up like i said please leave them in the comments i'll go ahead and answer them there or if you guys have any answers for people please go ahead and answer their questions oh let me show you if i was going to sew two pieces together i do i do press my fabric from the top from the non-paper side um just personal preference since that fabric is the part that i want to be ironed you can turn it over and press it the other way also if you want it doesn't really matter too much some paper is some of the cash register papers it has they say there's a chemical in it that can damage your fabric but i really think that's over a long period of time if you're using if that's the only thing you have available and you're using like cash register paper then just remove your paper right away and just be cautious that you don't have any issues with your seams so now i can sew these two together as is even with the paper on it what i would want to do is i would want to make sure both edges are even and then just like sewing anything else together i would lay them down right sides together go ahead and stitch across the end let's see if i can do that standing up now when i leave the paper in that's going to put paper into my seam which is okay but then you've got to pick it out but what you can also do is on both pieces you can take this extra piece right here just fold it back and that way you're only stitching through the fabric to whatever seam allowance you were doing before i did it and then you just go ahead and take this over to your iron and give it a nice pressing if you were paying attention and all your seams are going in the same direction that's great and if not doesn't matter press it open if you want either way and then you can just bring your two pieces of paper back together your paper will hold everything or you just have it all loosey-goosey like that and of course i did stitch mine two together with that olive green there but that's okay because this is just going to be a scrap piece and when it's in a quilt it's just going to look like more of a larger piece than it is two pieces sewn together so i hope that answered all of your questions i'll see you guys next time bye

Channel: RsIslandCrafts - Robin

Views: 23,179

Rating: 4.8243046 out of 5

Keywords: artfire, bits and pieces, calculator tape, fabric scraps, what to do with your fabric scraps, fabric leftovers, how to use fabric scraps, fabric scraps into fabric, fabric scraps into new fabric, cape coral, crafting, diy, fabric, florida, foundation piecing, leftovers, quilting, recycle, reduce, reuse, robin lalone, rsislandcrafts, scrap sewing projects, scraps, sewing, strip piecing

Id: 7ZH-MRy4_RU

Length: 31min 3sec (1863 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 07 2020