Lily Pocket Purse: Interfacing and Batting

by admin — 14 Comments »

Lazies, Let’s talk interfacing. Our newest Lazy Girl needs soft support in order to keep her beautiful pleats looking their best. I recommend a light weight fusible to show Lily at her best. Since the front cover and front lining each have pleats, they are both supported with interfacing. Supply info later in the post.

Lily Pocket Purse made by Carolyn Griffin.
Fabric is Metro by Michele D’Amore for Marcus Fabrics.

Interfacing
I absolutely adore Pellon’s Stacy Shape Flex woven cotton fusible interfacing. Love it. It is easy to work with, fuses quickly and offers nearly invisible and lightweight support while still offering substance.

Pellon’s Stacy Shape Flex, item #SF101, comes in a 20″ width (selvage to selvage) instead of the more popular 45″ width of other products. What that means to me is that it is easy to manage in my workspace.

For Lily, interfacing is fused to the fabric before cutting her shapely pieces. Each of the two main pieces is less than 10″ tall. If you cut the Shape flex right down the middle, you’ll get two 10″ strips which are large enough for Lily’s pieces. Nice!

Batting
I tried batting on the front lining and it immediately reminded me of the horseshoe crabs I remember washing up on the beaches of Sanibel Island during childhood vacations. Ewwww. Trust me, the batting was too much support for our delicate Lily. I still have this crab image in my head and, well, you probably do, too. Sorry about that.

Horseshoe crab, image by Dan Collins

I highly recommend fusible batting for this project. If you haven’t tried a fusible batting or fleece, consider giving it a go on this project.

The biggest issue I hear about fusible batting, also called fusible fleece, is that it wrinkles or puckers the fabric. Yes, I’ve encountered that myself in the past a few times.  Here is my theory on that. You don’t have to fuse it to within an inch of its life. I think the longer you press with your iron, the more chance there is of shrinkage – either the fabric or the fusible. However, you can fuse for a short period of time and it will adhere to your fabric. Think of a short fuse time as ‘basting’ and a long fuse time as cemented in place.

Click image above to enlarge.

Lily is a small project, the pieces of batting are tiny, they don’t have anywhere to go once they are sewn into place. What I’m saying is, you can’t go too wrong here. A light fusing works.

Back view of Carolyn’s Lily

The batting is on the inside of Lily, where it will be seen less – that makes this a great time to experiment with a fusible batting. If you choose to use a non-fusible batting, you can always stitch close to the edge to hold the fabric and batting together. Or use a spray adhesive to hold the layers together during construction.

Enjoy!
Joan