Look and Feel

To Interface or not to interface, that is the question.

The 100% lining fabric is a bit slick to me and it shreds quite easily. As a garment sewer we would call it crazy, slinky, crawls, you get the picture. It shifts unless it is really pinned down.

I decided to use interfacing on it to see how well it would sew. I used what I had in the house- a light to medium iron on interfacing for clothes and stay flex interfacing I use in bag making.

Both interfacings did really well in giving the label stability when sewn and the edges didn’t try shredding while I sewed it in.

Light to medium interfacing

One thing I did not like right off the bat was that the light to medium interfacing showed the glue dots through the fabric. That irritated my OCD and would bug me to remake the label. But I didn’t- I finished it up and washed it just to show you.

Close up of the interfacing glue dots showing up on the label.

Stay flex interfacing

The stay flex interfacing did extremely well. No glue dots on the front, it still draped well, it sewed up well.

Washing

The big issue was when they started to get washed.

After two washes the light to medium interfacing still had the dots but the fabric was starting to… well, not wrinkle but get loose and ripple. The reason was the batting was shrinking but the label, attached to the interfacing, was not allowing it to shrink. So you had the dots AND a rippled label.

The stay flex interfacing was close, but the rippling was more of a bubbling as the label ‘gathered’ in areas the interfacing had not affixed to strongly. It makes the label look puffy in some areas, ripply in others, and this will become more pronounced as the batting continues to shrink.

Close up of the stay flex label after 3 washings.

No interfacing

I also tried a lining fabric with no interfacing and the poplin fabric with no interfacing. Both turned out pretty good.

The lining fabric does show a ripple in the label because of the batting shrinking, but you can run your hand over the label and it smooths it out easily.

Lining fabric with no interfacing- shows the ripple of the label with the batting shrinking but it is all over and not concentrated in one area.

The poplin did the best. Really, the only way you can tell it was washed was the wrinkles in the frame around it when I ironed it. It has shrunk some along with the batting- I think it will keep up and look good throughout the life of the quilt.

Poplin label after being washed.