The downside of unusual materials.

I do enjoy working with unusual, and sometimes difficult, materials. (See Fur Hat, Vinyl Corset.) It's part of the reason I learned to sew to begin with.

However, another thing I tend to do is put things together backward or upside down.

Sometimes I'm just not paying very close attention. After all, I'm sewing for relaxation (nice excuse, eh?). Sometimes, construction instructions (what's your function?) are not clear. This time it was a matter of me losing track of which was the right side... which led to me sewing a facing on the wrong way. I'd say screw it, I'll put it together inside-out, since it's that difficult to tell... but I'd already sewn another detail on the outside.

I sew things upside down often enough to have invested in Gingher's awesome switchblade seam ripper a little while ago. Today's fabric is soooooo sheer, I didn't have much hope to removing the facing, even with the flashy little blade. Turns out, I was right. There's no way I'm removing that facing without destroying the edge of the shirt front.

There are a couple of lessons for me to take away from this. First, pay attention more when doing no-turning-back processes. Second, I don't think I was fully committed to making this shirt.

And again, because this is a leisure activity — particularly in this case, simply being a shirt out of a sale fabric I thought was neat, for no special event — I am comfortable ditching the project. I'm a little pissed at myself, yeah, for screwing up, but if I were more committed to the project, I'd find a way to make it work. Believe me, I'd find a way. When I realized there was no way I was ripping the facing, my overall reaction was "screw it."

Which means... screw it.

I'll unpin the pattern tissues, pile up the cut pieces and scraps, and put it back into my stash. I'll find something else to do with this nifty sheer textury fabric, but this shirt ain't it.

Now, back into the pattern database!

P.S.
Speaking of distorting and ruining fabric, don't forget to pre-shrink your fusible interfacing. I didn't preshrink this cut (I don't know, I thought it was sufficiently advanced technology that it wouldn't need it) and I could literally see the interfacing shrinking as I was ironing it to the collar.

Here's all you need to do. Get a dishpan, fill it with the hottest water that comes out of your tap, throw your fusible interfacing yardage in there, and leave it until the water cools off. Then hang the interfacing to dry overnight. Trust me on this.