Molly Sew-Along - Fusing The Interfacings

Yesterday I fused all the interfacings to my cut out pieces. It was a busy day as I helping my daughter make her dress while trying to get the fusing and pictures made. Consequently, I didn't get as many pics shot as I would have liked. But fusing interfacing is not that hard, once you figure it out, it's just repetition. However, I did realize a few things.

I just bought a new ironing board pad and it's so nice, it's clean and a pretty lavender color. So different than the ugly dirty striped one in the photos in the Molly Handbag Pattern. You know when you have something new you want it to stay that way? Well...that's really hard to do when you're fusing interfacing.

While fusing the fleece to the exterior pieces, the edges of the interfacing aren't cut exactly like the fabric and a little bit of the edge hangs over in places. Then, that edge gets fused to your ironing board. And, when you pull it up, it leaves little pieces of fusing or some kind of glue. Then when you iron over it, it ends up on your iron making it gunk up. Yuck. And it was totally messing up my new ironing pad.

Then I realized...the ironing pad cost $12...muslin cost about $2 a yard if I use a coupon. So I cut off a piece of muslin and laid it over my ironing board between the fleece and the new ironing pad. Voila! I'm saving my pad. When that piece of muslin gets so dirty I can't stand it any more, I'll just throw it away and it cost less than a dollar. Much better than buying a new ironing pad.

Anyway, here are the photos I took, I'll caption each one with what was happening at that time.

Okay, I'm a little obsessive. Cleaning the ironing pad with a lint roller to get all the left behind threads cleaned up.

When fusing interfacing I set up my ironing board next to the kitchen sink so I have easy access to water. I guess you could have a big bowl of water close as well. Either way, wetting and rewetting your pressing cloth is important as interfacing loves steam and this is the best way to give lots of steam. As for a pressing cloth, use any old piece of cotton cloth. Muslin or old white bed sheets work perfectly. I actually am going to start using a piece of muslin as the cloth I've been using is just too small - see below.

Placing the fleece interfacing on the cut pattern pieces with the fusible side touching the wrong side of the fabric. See how it doesn't match exactly? That's how the glue gets on your ironing pad. After this, I started using the muslin laid over the board, after picking all the gunk off my ironing pad.

Wet press cloth laid over the cut pieces and interfacing. Another tip here that I'm not doing YET - use a thin piece of white cotton, like muslin for your press cloth and you will be able to see through it to see what under it.

Holding the iron for 10 seconds in each place or until the pressing cloth is dry. See how the cloth is dry above my iron where I have already pressed. If your cloth isn't dry when you move your iron, you may have to hold it for 12 or 13 seconds. Be sure to use a high heat setting on your iron.

Here's where I started using the muslin cloth. You could use an old scrap from an old bed sheet too. Anything to save your ironing board pad.

See how the edge of fusing that overlaps the cut pattern piece sticks to the muslin underneath? That will be your ironing pad if you didn't put muslin between it and the pad. And it leaves gunk that will stick to your iron later when you're ironing your seams etc.

Here's a pic of my distraction yesterday.  The reason I didn't get as many pics. It was fun showing her how to sew her dress. She's really excited to get it finished but got tired after we worked on it for about 6 hours. Teaching someone to sew is kinda slow.

And another pic of Brittany sewing. I've never seen her behind a sewing machine before, these pics are rare.

Next weekend we will sew the exterior and strap. Looking forward to it, see you then.

Until later ~

Reba