Toilet Paper Fun

My niece is hosting a ladies night out and wanted some inexpensive gifts to give away.  One gift that was suggested was to embroider on toilet paper.  I was tasked with coming up with something to put on toilet paper.

Before I get into the details of how I did it let me share some hard learned lessons.

1. Use good quality toilet paper - it will save time and frustration.  My thinking was it will never be used so get the cheapest toilet paper available.  Cheap toilet paper tears easily and can have holes throughout the roll.
2. If you are doing a lot of rolls (I did 24) you will probably need to change the needle somewhere in the middle.  My thread kept breaking after a few stitches and I did all my normal checking but failed to change the needle.  After total frustration I changed the needle because it was the only thing I had not done and that solved the problem.
3. Clean your bobbin area often - you would be surprised at how much paper dust gets in there.  How often?  My machine started sounding "different" and when I checked the bobbin area there was quite a bit of paper dust in there.
4. Be very gentle when removing it from the hoop and wrapping it back around the roll.

How I Did It

I knew you could embroider on toilet paper because I remembered seeing it done either in a webinar or seeing a picture of it somewhere.  First I had to come up with a simple design.

I searched the internet and found a face silhouette image that I liked and used my embroidery software Creative DRAWings to auto digitize it but I did not like how it looked.  After a bunch of trial and error I manually digitized it to get a result I could live with.

I decided I did not like the lips that came with the face silhouette so I went back to the internet and found lips that I liked and I believe I manually digitized them also.  I added the wording and sent it to my niece for approval and she loved it which was a good thing since I had no other ideas and I didn't want to spend any more hours trying to come up with something.

Next I needed to find out the specifics of embroidering on toilet paper so I did a quick internet search and found this.  The video was clear and concise and just what I needed.  I modified the instructions just a bit because of the cheap toilet paper I was using.

The instructions had you double 2 squares of toilet paper but because I used really cheap toilet paper I tripled 3 squares.  I used 3 squares instead of 2 so I could use the center square for embroidering - it made it easier for me to work with the cheap toilet paper.

3 Layers

Another View - 3 Layers

I chose to use a cut away knit stabilizer.  Hooping is not an option with toilet paper - I had to pin it in place.  After I did the embroidery, I carefully removed the pins, cut away some of the stabilizer from the back, and cut away jump stitches if I could do it without ripping the toilet paper.  To keep it from ripping I usually unrolled about 3 feet of the toilet paper so it had enough slack during the pinning and embroidery.  I also basted around the design to hold the toilet paper in place.

Toilet Paper Pinned in Hoop an Basted Around the Edges

Back Side with Knit Stabilizer

Stitch Out Before Jump Stitches are Cut

Once the stitch out was complete, stabilizer was trimmed, and jump stitches cut I very carefully wrapped it back around the roll and put a small piece of Sewer's Fix It Tape on the edge to hold it in place.  Afterwards I wrapped the roll in cellophane and tied a ribbon around it.  The cheap toilet paper is extremely delicate so I had to protect it with something.  Since it will only be used for display cellophane was the perfect option.

If you choose to use a colored cellophane it could hid some of the detail.

Colored Cellophane

Conclusion

This project was fun and frustrating.  Fun because I embroidered on toilet paper, frustrating because I forgot the basic rules of embroidery troubleshooting.  The first few rolls went really fast but the last rolls were painful because I forgot basic troubleshooting.

This project forced me to do some manual digitizing.  This is something that I have been wanting to learn.  It gave me a new level of respect for digitizers and helped me to understand I have a lot to learn before I am proficient at digitizing.

There is one more item I still need to complete - footies.  Initially my niece wanted me to embroider on the footies (both the left and right footie) but when she told me she wanted enough for 24 guests (so 48 footies) I said absolutely not.

If it was maybe 5 pairs I would have considered it but 24 pairs was not worth my time even if she was paying for it (1/2 price for family).  I have another idea and will post when I complete the footies.

What's Next

Still hoping to get Lekala 4646 cut and sewn this week.

Lekala 4646