Interfacing

My latest sewing project has been going just great - bar one or two major mishaps.

The side and shoulder seams went together no problem. However, I then realised that I should have ironed on the interfacing before sewing together all seams. Luckily enough, it is only the front that gets interfaced as the fastenings are buttons down the front. I was able to place the interfacing correctly and iron it on.

I let it cool and then I started to figure out if I was going to have any unfinished edges that needed to be dealt with before I continued on with the collar. I found that there were a few bits where the interfacing had not properly stuck to the fabric. So I got the iron out again. I'm used to interfacing that's white and stiff. This stuff is black and soft. The only way I know that it's interfacing is that one side is definitely sticky.

Once the iron was ready, I started going at the bits that hadn't stuck.

When I got my nice new shiny expensive iron, I kept my old iron. I only use my old iron for interfacing. I'm not sure why but I find that no matter what you do, interfacing glue goes on the fabric, the iron or the ironing board depending on what goes wrong. If the interfacing is a little bit bigger than the fabric and we're talking an eighth of an inch, you stick everything to the ironing board and have to pry it off. If you get the interfacing up the wrong way, you stick it to the iron. And if all goes well, you manage to get it stuck only to the fabric.

Apparently, my iron way too hot this time. Under my very eyes, the fabric started scrunching up under the iron as though it was being sucked up by it. I whipped off the iron and discovered that the interfacing had 1) shrunk and 2) turned hard like plastic. Luckily, in its shrinking, it had pulled itself off my fabric. Thank God for small mercies! I had no more fabric and the fabric was from last year so there was no way I was going to be able to get more. I took the scissors and very carefully snipped at the interfacing so that it relaxed and the fabric could flatten once again. This left me with an interesting shaped hole in my interfacing and fabric underneath that had tiny little black dots - the interfacing glue.

Very gingerly, I took some more interfacing, a cooler iron, and re-interfaced the hole. That's the one nice thing about interfacing. It's a bit plug and play. You can use bits of interfacing and still make it work. I was back in business.