Messed Up

I guess I'm done with the upholstery, but not with the upholstery fabrics or sewing.

Mumble years ago, I bought a few yards of upholstery fabric which I thought would make a rather nice jacket, and it seemed it was finally time to do more than admire it.

I searched online and I searched Real Live fabric stores in town for a pattern for a swing coat, saw one which was sort of but not exactly what I was looking for, and decided to keep on looking. 

Eventually I turned to my rather old collection (not a very big one) of Burda magazines which used to be my staple back in the dark ages when I thought I liked sewing more than it turns out I actually do (I like it a bit, but not enough to make ninety percent of my clothes like I used to), and realized that the newest magazines were from around 2003, and there have been a number of fashion shifts whereby every pattern becomes useless. Like in the Eighties the amount of ease for clothes was a huge amount, and then there was a fashion shift to almost everything with negative ease. You all remember the fashion shift from high-waisted to low-rise, from Big Hair to not to much, right? So my Burda collection is replete with oversized everything, armholes that practically reach the waist, shirts which would not motivate one to lose weight, and jackets inside which you could be IWB (Intimate [with another person inside the coat] While Buttoned). I kid you not. I think sewing must be more practical now than in a few decades ago in terms of fabric usage. All those lengths of fabric that I thought were for shirts may well be for dresses or ensembles.

Anyway, turns out an a-line shirt pattern from the early Nineties has exactly the right proportions for a swing coat for today, so off I went (the swing coat pattern from the same era really may be for two of me at one time. Certainly I could get both arms into a sleeve). 

I was slightly short of my main fabric, so I cleverly supplemented with a coordinating solid to make turn-back cuffs, the under-collar and front facings, and then it happened.

I needed pockets (in the coordinating fabric), the kind that are invisible except for the flap, and sit on the inside of the garment. To make these work and dissolve, you need to strengthen and stabilize the main fabric, usually by using iron-on interfacing.

I thought the fabric was rayon (mostly), and therefore able to tolerate sufficient heat from the iron.

I was wrong.

Anubis is helpfully pointing out exactly where I ruined the fabric my MELTING it.

Damn. It was almost finished, and apart from the pockets needed only buttons.

I guess it's back to patch pockets.