Midnight Garden - Jacket - Part XVI

"What are you going to do with the synthetics?"

That is a good question, and today I'll give you a peek at what I've got planned. I have to stop at Jo-ann's today on the way to dentist and look for a synthetic in navy blue to round out the colors that I'm using.

Last night, because I really didn't want to start quilt the skirt yet (I'll do that tonight), I cut out a lot of flowers with the wood burning tool and then did some experiments. I want to take these flowers and make them into a pieces of fabric. I bought some Misty Fuse just for this purpose, but did not have a change to experiment as much as I wanted until last night.

Misty Fuse is very easy to use, and provides a very strong bond while being lightweight (as lightweight as a fusible can be!) and sheer when fused. This product is perfect for the fabrics I'm working with - some of them synthetic organza - and for the final product. I place one layer of flowers on a piece of parchment paper, a layer of Misty Fuse and then another layer of flowers. After the layering was complete, I placed another piece of parchment on top and fused the layers together with a hot iron. I flipped the piece over, added another layer each of Misty Fuse and flowers and fused those layers together. This is what I ended up with:

This "fabric" will then be used to make the collar, cuffs and peplum of the jacket. The "fabric" is still enough to hold it's shape for those jacket pieces without additional interfacing. Because of the jacket design, the cuffs, collar and peplum will be the same for both side, flipping to the other side when the jacket is turned inside out. The edges will be whatever the flower shapes happen to be at the edges. You can get an idea of what it will look like in the photos below.



I plan to embellish the flowers by using heat set Swarovski rhinestones in the center of each flower. I just need to buy the tool and order the rhinestones, but I'll make that stop after I go to the dentist!

Q/A: Lydia wanted to know the hem circumference of my white petticoat. The bottom ruffle is approximately 286". I knew that's not what the pattern originally intended (the petticoat pattern came with the pattern I modified for Diamonds), but I couldn't quite remember what I had done. Thankfully, I have this blog, or else I'd never remember what I did to get it that size! I went back through the posts and found the one where I explained what happened. The short story is that the original pattern had two ruffles of the same size attached at the same place one on top of the other as one ruffle. This wasn't full enough for me, so I removed them, made one really big ruffle out of the two and attached it instead. Do consider your petticoat pattern as a jumping off point - add more netting sections to each layer or just the bottom layer to create more fullness.

Parting Shots: Kiwi is now playing with everything in the house, just look what she found in the studio. She's still a bit skittish and won't let us pet her too much, but she is getting more social overall.