make your own strong pattern paper.
 

Some times you just don't want to cut a pattern out of a magazine, or you want to preserve or strengthen a tissue paper pattern. Perhaps you want to draw up your own pattern or make a quilting motif stencil. Here is a great way to make super strong, translucent pattern paper.
You will need:
White plastic garbage bags
White tissue (el cheapo from the dollar store)
An iron
Pressing cloth or parchment paper

Cut a plastic bag down into the size of your tissue paper, you only need one layer of plastic so one bag will make at least two sheets of pattern paper. You want little to no overlap of the plastic.
Sandwich the plastic with two pieces of tissue. Lay down a protective cloth on your ironing board, I use a worn out sheet. With parchment paper as a press cloth to protect your iron, press the paper sandwich on a linen setting until bonded. It is good to have some ventilation like an open window as the plastic does stink.
The patern paper is cutable, tearable, pinable but quite durable. You can tract through it, or draw on it and it will last a long time.
Uses:
Bond one sheet of tissue to a comercial tissue pattern and then cut out the pattern. It will never tear and degrade with much use.

Bond a sheet of tissue to decorative paper like maps and such...I have even made lampshades with this paper. It is very strong.

Bond a sheet of tissue to some fabric to make book binding fabric. If you buy this it is very expensive and only comes in some boring solids. You can make your own book fabric...the glue won't come through to the top. If you like to do book crafts as I do it is a lot less expensive.

Trace off multipal sizes from an existing pattern. No need to loose the larger size when you want to start with the smaller one.

Trace a quilting motif and with a pin make holes along the lines, use a chalk pouncer to transfer pattern to the quilt.
Cheaper than the plastic ones and you can have any pattern you can trace.
I am sure there are other uses, these are just the one's I have come up with so far.

That sounds great. I will have to try it. There are always lots of plastic bags!

Thanks, that's a great idea. I never tear up my books and magazines. I do a lot of tracing and remaking patterns.

sassy granny

Great idea. Thank you for sharing.

This is a wonderful tip.I am always looking for a way to mark quilts easily. I am saving it for later to try. Thank you

This is a wonderful idea. Do they have to be commercial plastic garbage bags? Can the store plastic bags [grocery/walmart] work?

Wow!! I will have to try the one with the white plastic and tissue paper. Thanks for sharing.

Great idea!

Thanks so much. This is something I will be trying soon. We all have those favorite patterns that we use over and over.

Pat

I use cheap interfacing because you can lay the pattern underneath it and trace it without any problems. It is very durable and I've had some of mine for years. It doesn't tear and you can iron it to smooth it out. So easy!