Heat n Bond Iron on Fusible Interfacing ( Product Review )

Today’s post is a part of a series called The Quilt Maker’s Toolkit, showing and teaching about the products I use while I make my quilts.

There are no products in this series that I do not use and use often, though sometimes my opinions may change as I grow and move along in my journey of quilt making.  To view all posts in this series click here.

 

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Hello, hello, my sweet people!  I’ve tried out a ‘new to me’ product that you might need for your own toolkit.

I’m making another one of my orange peel quilts.  This one to look very similar to the last one I made.

Here’s my process with this quilt:

choose fabrics

cut background squares

press and interface scraps

cut orange peels

applique iron peels

make blocks

layout

stitch blocks together

 

One step is considerably more time consuming than the others and that is the interfacing step.

What is Interfacing?

Interfacing is a material you iron on to a piece of fabric you are going to raw edge applique to another fabric.  It makes the fabric stiff and much easier to applique without tucks, folds, or any other yucky stuff.  I always try to buy the very lightweight kinds so that I can have the least resistance when quilting.

Most interfacing only comes 20″ wide.  I usually try to use my scraps first.  I’ll have my interfacing on my table, bumpy side up, then lay my scrap on it, cut around and then press it.  If you picture that you might get an idea of why it’s a little more time consuming.

Heat n Bond

I have never used this brand before.  I have a very specific brand I started using and never experimented.  I think I link and mention it in my Orange Peel Quit tutorial.  The interfacing I’ve used in this past is great.  It works, gets the job done and I like it.  BUT THIS INTERFACING!

I picked this up because my normal brand was out.  Interfacing is nothing to get excited about.  Obviously.  But certain qualities can really make a difference, such as:  how quick the iron can fuse your fabric to the interfacing, or if the interfacing stays stuck to it.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up the peel to applique on to the square and the peel and interfacing was no longer stuck together.  Major bummer!  All of these little things adds up and subtracts from your time.

With Heat n Bond Interfacing, that was just not the case.  Normally, I have to press a little longer than I did with this brand, but also, I normally spray a little water on my fabric to get a better stick.  That was not the case here.  I put my iron to the fabric, voila, done!  It was so much more dreamier to work with.

Heat n Bond Fusible Interfacing by the bolt (this is the exact one I buy)

And here is is if you prefer to buy by the yard

A few tips

You can view my orange peel quilt tutorial right here.

It’s much easier to interface a scrap and THEN cut your orange peel from it.  This way you are not having to cut both seperately, and you end up actually cutting both at the exact same time.

So I interface a bunch of scraps, then sit on my sofa and watch TV, draw my orange peel on the back of the interfacing and then cut it (this is detailed in the tutorial).  I do fold my scrap or stack it into at least 2-4 layers so that I’m cutting multiple orange peels at a time.  This also allows me to only draw the shape once per several orange peels.

After all my work on this quilt so far (its on my design wall now), I’ve realized I’m three blocks short, so back to work I go.