Good Foundations

It's no secret that I love foundation piecing. I use it in most of my pieced quilts. And consequently I use a lot of foundations. Back in December when I bought a new printer, I deliberately chose an A3 monster so I'd be able to print larger foundations.

Naturally, I didn't need to print any large ones straight away, but for my current quilt the blocks are around 10in (too large for an A3/letter sheet) so I've been testing out a pad of newsprint paper - with excellent results. So good that I'm tempted not to even bother with trying the other 2 types I bought to experiment with!

A good foundation paper should be cheap, run smoothly through the printer, sew easily, tear out easily (but only along the sewn lines, not haphazardly all over the place), print nicely, and leave the printing visible through to the back of the page. This paper fits the bill perfectly. In fact, I think it's better (as well as much cheaper) than Carol Doak's, which I've sworn by for years (but only comes in letter size).

I've sewn a lot of blocks with it, and it's held up well, and been easy to use. It runs through the printer way better - I don't even have to feed it in one page at a time, which is an enormous time and back-ache saver! And at $5.95 for 100 A3 (that's approximately ledger size, I believe) it's an absolute bargain!

I bought mine from here, and it's great to be able to buy locally (well within the country at least!) for a change, and still save! I imagine it's available at many art supply stores, though it was easier to hunt online at the time. I will be looking in local stationery shops next.

Next time I run out of foundation papers, I'll be buying more of this. Mont Marte 50gsm Newsprint. It's available in A3 and A4 sizes. It does come in a pad, but it's easy to tear out, and I just put it cut-edge-first into the printer tray. I suggest you give it a try - just don't tell them you're using it for quilting, and it might even stay cheap ;)

PS - I have no association with either the shop or the manufacturer, I found this by chance while searching fro soemthing that might work and just wanted to share.