Progress Made

I got the other interfacing in the mail the other day, five yards of it, but the small package weighed only a couple ounces.  Uh-oh, I thought.  This doesn't feel right.

Imagine your sheerest of sheer undergarments.  That's what this Pellon 865F Bi-Stretch Lite interfacing feels like.  This is all of it piled on the cutting table.

See how it drapes and how you can see my scissors through it?  

You also might note that little snag at the top of the scrap above.  You're going to need those sharp scissors to cut this.  The rotary cutter tended to snag it and also embed it into any groove line on the cutting mat.  ("The Groove Line" by Heatwave.  Yes, I just had to stop and watch/listen to that song!  Ah, such fun memories of the disco era.)

But I forged ahead and started fusing it to the necktie fabrics.  I cut a chunk of the tie roughly the length of my Dresden template and then fused the interfacing onto the back side.  

Despite supposedly having a lower melting point for the adhesive, I found I needed to set my iron on #6 Wool (#7 is Cotton on my iron, and #3 is Silk, for comparison), use a DRY iron with pressing cloth on top, and count 15 full seconds.  Anything less than that amount of heat or time wasn't enough to get a permanent adhesion.  But the silky tie fabrics all seemed to be okay with that, so on we went.

I then cut out the Dresden templates and sewed across the tops to make the point.  I had changed out my machine needle to a 70/10 and had Isacord in the bobbin and a Sulky rayon thread on top.

This interfacing did not make the pieces feel or sew more like cotton, so I had to take care and pin where needed.  The fabric retained its slinky feeling, which if you were going to make a garment, that's what you'd want.  I was just happy it was stabilizing the fabric and staying put.

I got out my package of silk pins that I hadn't used in years.  I remember buying them when I was making my college graduation dress!  (As I write this, the radio in the basement is currently playing Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight," which I remember had just come out my senior year in college.  "Hold on..."  I didn't mean for this post to be such a musical trip down memory lane, but that's how the morning is going.)

Okay, so I got the pieces sewn together just fine, and pressed them.  I used a pressing cloth anytime I came near the ties with the iron.  After having washed and pressed each one when I first got them, I knew some of them were funny with direct heat, and I didn't want to screw anything up now.

Then it was time to pin them down to the background.  Again, a lot of silk pins were used to keep them in place.  I machine stitched the Dresden plate down along the inside circle and the outer pointed edge.  The rest of the stitching happened with the quilting.  More on that tomorrow!

The bottom line is the new interfacing worked just fine for this small wall hanging that I want to get done by Christmas.  Were I to be making a larger quilt and had more time, I might keep looking and experimenting.  Overall, though, I'm happy with the way the Bi-Stretch Lite worked for these vintage ties.  I'm going to start another small project with some of the rest of the ties, and I'll continue to use it for that.