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I’m going to take you step-by-step through the process of stitching a machine embroidery design onto a roll of toilet paper.

The design shown was created by Michele Potter, using the Generations Software Program. The stitch count on this design is approximately 8000 stitches and is 3 1/4 “ x 3 1/4” in size. This is about the largest size that I would stitch out onto a roll of toilet paper. Any larger than this; you would take the risk of the design not fitting properly and leaving no room for decorative finishing touches such as the ribbon that I used to decorate the roll of toilet paper with.

Now let’s get started. Below is a list of the supplies that you will need to complete your stitch out on a roll of toilet paper.

· Your choice of machine embroidery design (no larger than 3 ¼ x 3 ¼ inches.)

· One roll of toilet paper (I don’t have a preference with brand, but some like to use Royal or Charmin’s)

· OESD AquaFilm Wash-Away Stabilizer (any clear plastic stabilizer that will tear away easily)

Place a piece of Poly Propolene Cut Away Stabilizer on top of you 4 x 4 inch hoop.

Carefully roll out the toilet paper so that the paper is coming off of the roll from the bottom and laying flat on the table. This is important that you roll the toilet paper off of the roll in this manner because it will fit back into place properly after you’ve stitched out your design.

Gently take a hold of the end of the toilet paper and fold back at the crease of the third square making sure to line up the sides of the toilet paper.

Now gently fold the toilet paper back in the other direction. You will be folding the toilet paper at the crease of the second sheet. As you should be able to see from the picture, there are now a few sheets of toilet paper folded together and a tail of a single sheet left on the right hand side of the picture. This tail of toilet paper will be torn off and discarded when your stitch out is completed. Its sole purpose is to hold the roll of toilet paper in the hoop.

Before you place your toilet paper in the hoop, flip it so that the toilet paper will be rolling from the top of the roll, not the bottom. Please carefully examine the pictures in steps 3 & 4. If you do not flip the toilet paper roll over, you will sadly stitch your design on the inside of the toilet paper roll. Notice the tail piece of the toilet paper in step 4 is now coming from underneath the roll, not above.

Carefully lay the folded toilet paper over top of the Poly Propolene Cut Away Stabilizer that you placed on top of your 4 x 4 hoop earlier. Don’t be afraid to unroll a fair amount of toilet paper in order to make placement on the hoop easier for you. At this point you can put your plastic template on top of your toilet paper to try and center it in the hoop the best that you can.

Of course, if you’re still using your template to align the toilet paper, remove it to place a single layer of the OESD AquaFilm Wash-Away Stabilizer on top of the toilet paper. Now is the time to make sure that you square of toilet paper is centered in the hoop. Once you have your toilet paper centered in the hoop, firmly press your hoop into place. You can gently pull on the sides of the AquaFilm Stabilizer to make it taunt, but please do NOT pull on the toilet paper.

Now you are ready for the moment you’ve been waiting for. Bring your hooped toilet paper over to your machine where you have selected your design and it’s ready to go.

In this step I would just like to show you a picture of how much toilet paper that I’ve remove from the roll to give my machine the flexibility to safely stitch out your design without tearing the toilet paper roll. Some may think this is a little over-kill, but I would rather be safe than sorry.

I strongly recommend that you take a minute to do a trial run with your machine before you begin the actual stitch out. This is to ensure that your design will stitch out exactly where you would like it to. At this point, if need be you can make a minor adjustment by using your machine to move the design. Far better to move your design with your machine, rather than have to re-hoop your roll of toilet paper. Please refer to the manual of your own machine for this step.

Now we sit back and watch our machine work it’s magic by stitching our the design onto the toilet paper. All you have to do is change your thread colours and make sure that the toilet paper roll is hanging loosely over the edge of your machine.

When your design is finished carefully remove the hoop from your machine. At this point I prefer to cut any threads that need to be cut from your design. Don’t get too picky. If they are tiny jumps that aren’t too noticeable, I would just leave them.

Bring your toilet paper and hoop back to your table and remove the toilet paper from the hoop.

Turn the roll of toilet paper over so that the wrong side of the design is facing you. Cut away the Poly Propolene Stabilizer all around the four sides. Cut the stabilizer into the square shape of the piece of toilet paper. Make sure to cut the stabilizer in far enough so that it does not show on the outside of the toilet paper roll from the right side.

Gently pull off the AquaFilm Stabilizer. It should fall away from your stitches quite nicely. You don’t have to worry about getting every small bit of stabilizer off of your design. The plastic is clear and it doesn’t harm the end result. For example, I left the AquaFilm Stabilizer intact in the center of my design (around the lettering). It looks like it was meant to be.

Firmly press down on the right edge of the section of toilet paper that your design has been stitched on. Now tear away the extra tail of toilet paper that was used to secure the toilet paper in the hoop.

Carefully and as evenly as you can roll the excess toilet paper back onto the roll, leaving the piece of toilet paper with your design on it lying flat on the table. Any fabric glue will work fine for this step. Apply a thin line of glue onto the edge of the toilet paper. I make sure to also put some glue on the edge of the Poly Propolene Stabilizer to secure it as well. Now roll the remaining piece of toilet paper back onto the roll and gently press together at the glue line. It doesn’t take long at all for the glue to hold the toilet paper in place. You can continue onto to the next step immediately without harming the toilet paper roll.

Step 14 and 15 are optional. Your toilet paper roll was complete at Step 13, but I like to decorate them a bit. Please feel free to use your own imagination at this point, but I will tell you how I complete my toilet paper rolls. The first thing that I do is tie a piece of decorative ribbon onto the bottom and the top edge of the toilet paper roll.

The last thing that I do is take a piece of netting (approximately a 16 in square) and fold it in four. Then I push the center of the netting into the middle of the toilet paper roll. I proceed to fill that with pot pourri and tie it together with the same decorative ribbon that I’ve used around the edges of the toilet paper roll.

The netting that I am referring to is the same type of fabric that would be used to make wedding favors. With this particular toilet paper roll I wanted to add a touch of gold so I went hunting in my sewing room and came up with a piece of gold organza. I found that the organza wasn’t quite stiff enough to hold up so I placed in on the inside of some white netting which held the organza in place quite nicely.

I hope that you have enjoyed this lesson “How to Successfully Machine Embroidery on Toilet Paper”