A Lightweight Tracing Paper That Works as Hard as You Do
Some of the most useful tools in a sewing room are the simplest. Pellon® 111 Tracing Paper is a lightweight tracing paper made of 100% wood cellulose, supplied in white on a generous 10-inch by 70-yard roll. It is translucent enough to trace through, takes pencil and pen cleanly, and is designed for the everyday pattern and design work that quilters, embroiderers, and garment sewists do again and again.
Because it comes on a long roll rather than in small sheets, you can cut exactly the length you need — a short strip for a single appliqué motif or a longer piece for a full pattern section. That 70-yard length means one roll lasts through seasons of pattern work, so you are not running out in the middle of a project.
What Tracing Paper Is Best For
Pellon 111 is a studio staple for tracing and altering patterns. Instead of cutting or marking up an original pattern you want to keep, trace a working copy onto the paper. You preserve the original, and your copy is free to be adjusted, taped, and re-drawn as you make fit alterations or change a design.
Quilters reach for it for a different set of jobs: copying paper-piecing foundations, and transferring quilting motifs and embroidery designs onto blocks and fabric. Place the paper over a printed design or pattern, trace the lines you can see through it, then use that traced copy to transfer or stitch the design where you want it. It is an easy way to test placement and repeat the same motif accurately across multiple blocks.
It also lends delicate, tear-away stabilization to fine stitching. That light support helps you stitch a traced design neatly, then removes without stressing the stitches you just made.
How to Use It: Trace, Stitch, and Tear Away
Start by smoothing the paper over the pattern or design you want to copy. Its translucency lets the lines show through, so you can follow them with a pencil or pen, which it takes cleanly. Cut the traced section to a manageable size for your block, garment piece, or foundation.
For stitch-through work, position the traced paper on your fabric and sew directly through the traced design. The paper perforates along the stitching line, so when stitching is complete you can tear it away. It removes cleanly without pulling stitches — an important detail with fine or delicate stitching, where tugging at a stabilizer could distort the work.
Work gently as you tear: support the fabric with one hand and pull the paper away close to the stitching with the other, rather than yanking from a distance. That simple habit keeps the perforation doing the work and leaves your stitch line undisturbed.
Tips for Better Results
Test your marking tool first. Pencil and pen both mark this paper cleanly, but pressure and darkness that suit tracing at a table may read differently once the paper is on fabric, so a quick sample helps you choose. Keep lines you intend to stitch along smooth and continuous — they are your sewing guide.
Cut only what you need from the roll and store the rest rolled, so the paper stays smooth and ready to lay flat over the next pattern. For repeated motifs, keep one clean traced master and make working copies from it, rather than re-tracing from the original every time.
Know its limits, too. This is a lightweight, delicate paper, not a firm stabilizer or a durable pattern material for heavy handling. Reach for it when you need to see through, mark clearly, stitch through, and tear away clean — which is exactly the job it was made for.
Shop the Pellon® 111 Tracing Paper 10" x 70 yards Package. Color: White. at Linda's Electric Quilters.
