DIY carbon tranfering paper

· · · · · • DIY carbon tranferring paper • · · · · ·

 

If you already have a piece of carbon paper, great! Just keep on using that. It lasts for a long time. If you do not own one yet, or you already own one but isn’t the right color for the fabric you want to transfer the marking on, you can make your own tranfering paper in very easy steps.

 

You will need

  • Wax coloring block or Color pencil of desired color OR Graphite pencil (makes black marking)

  • Middle weight paper (copy paper works well)

  • Smooth working surface

1. Make a test piece

  • Draw and fill small pieces of paper with a Wax crayon, colored or black pencil. Try with different tone of colors to see which works the best on your fabric. Wax-based color pencil might work better than oil-based ones, but it might depend on the type of fabric you are using. Just do some experiment!


DIY_carbonpaper_drawing

  • Place the colored paper facing down the fabric.

  • Draw a line with a tracing wheel, try lightly and with more pressure.

tracingwheel_drawing

  • Take a look at the marked surface of the fabric. See which color and type of pencil gave the most satisfying result. It should be clear and dark enough, but preferably not too dark in case you want the line to eventually disappear.

kopierrad_probe

  • If the markings should disappear, try to brush, lightly rub, or wash. Make sure to test before you work on the final tracing process on the entire garment. If the line doesn’t go away easily, you can always transfer the markings on the wrong side of the fabric so that it is not visible on the right side.

 

Are you happy with the color, the coloring material, and washing result? 

Then move to the next step!

 

2. Make a final piece

    • Decide the size of paper. It is entirely up to you. If your sewing pattern has many long straight lines, you might want to prepair a narrow and long piece of paper. If your pattern is small, or has many small curves (like baby clothings), you might want to cut the paper in square form (15cm x 15cm or 20cm x 20cm, might be a good size) and so on.

    • Trace the pattern as accustomed way.

    patterntracing_tracingwheel

       

       

      You can use this DIY carbon paper over and over again. If the color gets too light, all you have to do is drew the same color on the surface again.

      From my experiment, blue color works very good on different color fabrics, as is in the case of tailors chalks.

       

       

      · · · · · • Transfer paper alternative • · · · · ·

       

      Try some semi transparent paper as an alternative to a conventional tracing paper.

      - Parchment paper

      - Baking parchment paper

       

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