 Whether you are a team trace or you are somebody who gets their PDF patterns printed and you cut right into them, there are so many different options in terms of tracing papers and pattern papers. And so today I thought I would run through some of my favorites with you. We are going to be talking about the ever famous medical exam paper, the Swedish tracing paper. And I have the three papers that Sublime Graphics uses when they print your PDF patterns for you. I have their tracing paper, their tissue paper, and their like regular weight paper. So we're going to take a look at all of those, see how they perform, see how they are able to be traced. And we're going to walk through all of them and kind of just do a fun little experiment comparing all these papers to see which one is the best one for you and the specific project that you are going to be working on. So let's head to my cutting table where we can start to make our way through some of these papers. Okay, so we're going to be analyzing to figure out what is the best paper to have your patterns printed on. What is the best paper to trace with and just kind of get a good idea of what papers you need in your sewing room and which ones you do not. So I have two fabrics here, both very lightweight and drapey. One is a knit, this brown one is a knit and the black one is a woven. And I have them here because we're going to be doing some tests to see what it would be like if we were pretending to cut any pattern piece out of any of these tissue papers. First off, we're going to start with tracing. So we've got our McCall's tissue paper. And we've also got Swedish tracing paper. Now this is the stuff that is sewable. And then we've got the ever lovely medical exam paper. Okay, so we're going to be analyzing these for just kind of how easy they are to trace over, like how easy they are to see in between, plus how easy they are to like actually draw on. And then I'm going to draw right on down here. I mean, that feels pretty good. No big deal. Well, it did bleed through a little bit. Okay, next up we have the Swedish tracing paper. This stuff is like fabric, but it's obviously not. It's paper. So when we are going to trace this one, your pen really does catch. It's because it's not smooth, because it has a little bit of a subtle texture to it, your pen really does stay on that line really evenly and cleanly and doesn't waver like it did on the McCall's paper where you can see I'm kind of like wiggling back and forth. Okay, now we have the super lovely medical exam paper. This is very papery. Okay, and it's thicker than the tissue paper you get from McCall's. I find this stuff to be super slippery, like very, very slick and smooth. And so I think it's a little bit hard to get a super straight line. So that's how they perform when tracing off a pattern. Once you have your pattern cut out, let's see how these perform on our fabrics. The tissue paper especially, it is just sliding right on top of both fabrics, not catching anything anywhere. And then when we go to like pretend that we are going to cut around this and pin into it, the pins go through nice and easily, although the paper does get a little bit bunchy as you can see there. So to get it to lay super flat might be a little bit of a challenge. You might have some bubbling, but all in all not terrible. The Swedish tracing paper does not move, right? It is on here and it does not want to slide around at all. And little things like this happen really easily all the time because it's so grippy. And when I pin through, because it has a little bit more of a structure to it, unlike the tissue paper, it actually lays really flat and you're able to pin into it actually pretty easily. Medical exam paper like the McCall's paper is nice and smooth, the smoothest of all of them I would say, so that's not going to be an issue. What becomes a problem with medical exam paper is because it's so shifty and also thicker than the tissue paper, when you go to pin into it, it does not do well. It does not like to be pinned at all. It just doesn't want to be messed with. This one's better on the lighter fabrics. If you don't have actual tracing paper like from a McCall's pattern, this is all you've got. This is okay on medical exam paper, but I would opt for pattern weights. Now let's pretend that instead of tracing off a pattern, you actually want to get your pattern printed. You either are going to print it at home on like copy shop paper that you get at the office store or you're going to send it off to a PDF plotter. I think almost every single one of them that I know of prints on copy paper, except for sublime graphics that also prints on something called tracing paper and tissue paper. So we're going to do the same tests with these three papers to help you decide if you do go to Swedish, if you do go to sublime graphics, which of the papers are best for you to order? You might think that you always want to get tissue paper, but that's not always the case. I sometimes prefer the tracing paper and I don't think I've ever ordered the copy paper if I'm being perfectly honest. Okay, so first up we've got the tissue. Now how does this compare to big four tissue? Big four tissue is literally tissue. You can tell how it's easy to rip. You pull it hard and it just tears away. You use a pencil on it and it starts to come apart. The pencil can easily like jab through the paper. Sublime graphics tissue, if you get your pattern printed on this, you bring it home, you need to make alterations. This is how that performs with both the pencil and the pen. And I was going to see, I guess we're going to use this as our test again, how easy it is to stay. I mean we won't actually be staying on a line if we're altering, but this will give us a good idea of what it's like to draw on it. Oh, okay, very interesting, very, very interesting. Look how good that line turned out. You would think because it is slippery, but it, you know what? Now that I'm actually over analyzing this, it does have a lot of grip to it. This is definitely softer. So is this. This has a little bit of grip to it. So when I'm drawing that line, it feels like it's really holding onto my pencil. It worked well with both writing implements. Feels a little bit grippy, not as smooth as the McCall's tissue paper, which is very surprising to me. Okay, so we've got that. Then we have the sublime tracing paper. Now, obviously, this is not as sheer as everything else that we've used. This is closer. This is what I would consider like a lightweight copy paper. Okay, this is much closer to copy paper than anything else. And you can see that it's a little bit harder to see underneath, not difficult, but if you do have a hard time with your eyes, this might not be for you under any circumstances, but it is very, very, very smooth. And yeah, you can see I'm having a hard time. My line is very wavy. Let's see how it is with the pencil. And again, this is a dull pencil, not super sharp. Yeah, wavy again. Wavy again. A little bit, well, no, now that's going off altogether. So a little bit harder to trace off on, on the tracing paper. And then your copy paper, you would never trace, I mean, you can, you can definitely see through it. I don't know why you would, you know, and it is pretty grippy, but I don't know why you would, if you're going to be tracing something off, I don't think you would ever use this. But if we're making alterations to a pattern, this performs pretty good on the line test. Yeah, it does have a little bit of, you can tell how my thumb is kind of just like sticking to it ever so slightly. Whereas with this one, it's just smooth as can be, no matter how hard I press, it's still super, super smooth. So that's tracing. If we needed to like make alterations or you were combining, you're doing like a um, Franken pattern or whatever it is, that's how sublime graphics papers perform there. When we go to cut our fabric, here's what we're dealing with there. We've got this trace, this tissue paper, which as you can see, definitely floats over the fabric. I don't know if I'm comparing the two, they kind of feel the same, but this one is definitely lighter than this. So it feels like, I don't know, it feels like it's not laying into the fabric, like this one does. This one feels like it's got a lot of contact with the fabric, whereas this one still feels like it's up a little bit. And then if we are going to use pattern weights, obviously that works perfect. If we're going to be using pins, yeah, not super good, right? Like it's, it's definitely bubbling right there. Let's see how it is on this other one. Yeah, shiftiness wise, it's pretty good. I mean, this one's moving a lot. Can you see that one down there? How much that's moving around? It was sort of almost off the screen for you guys, but this one's kind of moving around a lot, but the knit is staying pretty good. So that's how that one works. This is the trace, I'm sorry, yeah, the tracing papers here. Now this feels, like I said, a lighter weight copy paper. So it is a little bit grippier, right? It's got decent contact with the fabric, but not as much as the tracing paper, I'm sorry, the tissue paper because it is so thick, it's kind of, instead of it being lofty, it's kind of just thicker. And so doing whatever it kind of wants. Pattern weights, obviously works pretty good. Same amount of drag as the others. This one with the pen, I'm nervous. Yeah, a little bit of, oh, very much buckling right there at the corner. You can see how it just wants to stand up. I guess that's sort of what I mean about how it's laying on the fabric. It definitely wants to pull up. And so it would be hard to get an accurate cut that way. But this way it's only, it's waving a little, little bit through here. If we pull it in some, yeah, a little bit better, a little bit better. Shifting this wise, yeah, it's doing pretty good in that category. All right. And then finally we have the copy paper. So this stuff I find more often than not, these little corners somehow magically get stuck in your fabric and then do this. Of course I'm going to have a hard time. Like I feel like I'm one of those really bad infomercials where they're like, look how difficult your life is. Oh my God, it's so hard, but our product solves everything. I'm going to have a hard time with that on this, but you know what I mean. Like you go to put this on something and it catches the fabric, shifts it around and it's so, so, so annoying. Maybe it hasn't happened very often, but the few times that it has happened I'm like, what the heck? It's enough to make me not like copy paper. It isn't sticking to it at all. It's just the corners. When the corners catch it, maybe I didn't cut it. You know what I mean. If you know if it's happened to you, you know what I'm talking about. There's a good example. There we go. Whereas with the other papers, even the thicker one, the next thickest one we have is a tracing paper. And even that one, it, it's going to bend before it does anything to the fabric. You see? Well, that was fun. Okay. And so now we can do paper weight. Paper weight looks good, actually. This is so heavy that it is doing both. It's laying into the fabric and it's also like so heavy that it doesn't want to pull away from it either. So it's, it's weighted into the fabric and also holding down onto the fabric. And then our pins do a number like that. That's a lot better than the last one that we saw. Having to lift the fabric a lot to get that pin in. Could you tell? I put the pin in here and I'm going to put it through, but the pin doesn't want to go through the paper very easily. So I'm having to lift up that fabric a whole lot. So, and when you do that, you can see it's all moving. All the fabric up here just totally moved, but it doesn't shift around too, too much. So that's good. So I think that in terms of the PDF printing from Sublime Graphics, here's how I like to do it. I like to use the tissue paper. I am super impressed by the line test. I was not expecting that out of this tissue paper to be honest with you. So another reason to love it. I know if I'm going to be mixing patterns, if I'm going to be doing a lot of alterations, I'm going to go for this one. The tracing paper is my next choice for patterns that I'm going to be cutting out of mid to heavyweight fabrics. So your chambrays, your cottons, your denim, corduroy, suede, all of that kind of stuff. I'm going to be using the tracing paper. The coffee paper, I just, I think I've had too many bad experiences. There's too much trauma associated around copy paper. It didn't perform well in the line test. It doesn't do well with pins, you know? So it's just like so many things working against it. And whenever you have good alternatives like these two, why futz around with this bad option, you know? I have a code, if you guys want to try sublime graphics out, get a few patterns and have them printed on different papers and see for yourself which ones you like, I have a code that will save you 25%. So that definitely makes that a little bit more affordable for you. Okay. So I know a lot of information, a lot of variety there. Some are similar. Some are very, very different. So you really need to kind of like play around with it a little bit. I just believe wholeheartedly that making these little decisions and spending this time figuring this stuff out in your sewing room, it's going to ultimately make your sewing projects so much more enjoyable to work with because you have eliminated the struggle. So eliminate the struggle with your tracing and PDF printing. Check the description box for links to any of the papers that I mentioned here in the video today. They are all available online. So check the description box for that. Otherwise, that is going to do it for me today. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you all very soon. Bye.