Concurring My White Whale, Part 1

We all have sewing processes that we have problems with. Something that chills us to the core, something that fills us with dread, maybe even something that could make us look at a project and think, "Maybe I'll put this to the side and do something more fun instead." For me, that process is iron on interfacing.

I've never really been able to get to grips with it, partly because I've never been shown how to use it and partly because I usually want to get it over with so quickly that I just get it sort of staying on and sew everything in place.

You may be saying to yourself, "But Ginnie, didn't your red tunic have interfacing in it?" because you, my reader, are perceptive. It did have interfacing, but I didn't put it in. I did most of the work on that top at my paternal grandmothers, a fabric artist, and she got a bit fed up of me waffling and put it in herself. It still didn't stick. And it shrank a bit.

I decided that the point of this blog is to help me practice and get better, so I went online and found a tutorial to show me how to do it right.

 My first attempt was less than amazing. I'd bought a sheet of white interfacing (we'll come back to that later) at Abakhan when I was out with my boyfriend and cut two pieces for the back and front yoke.

I had trouble figuring out which side had the glue on, so I went with the one that looked most likely and lay them that side down on top of my bias cut yoke pieces. I wet some spare cloth and lay it over one of them so that I could press the iron down without getting glue on my iron or burning anything.

I noticed the first signs that things were going on strait away but because I didn't really have much experience I just went with it. Glue started seeping through the scrap cloth and sticking everything together.

When I picked up the cloth I found the yokes were stuck to the bottom and the interfacing had disintegrated all that was left behind was the glue, even on parts that hadn't been touched by the iron.

I decided to turn the other piece of interfacing over and try again but that turned out the same.

I think I might have figured out what went wrong and, reader, it's all my fault. I think I may have picked up water soluble fabric. It's not the end of the world but by that point I was kind of fed up, so I cut out two new yoke pieces and went to bed.