In the previous post, I wrote about how I thought I could use the analog of an ID slot in a wallet for my photo panels. Today, we further tinker with the concept and arrive at a panel that holds multiple photos at once.

The Result

For those short on time or uninterested in the technical details, I validated that my ID-window approach to the photo panels will work for multiple photos.

The photos I used in my prototype are from a trip with friends to the Great Smoky Mountains in 2021. I have a lot of fantastic memories from that trip, which was our first trip since the pandemic began. Memories such as:

  • Taking our car, Acura Knightly, on its first major road trip (there have since been several)
  • Being greeted by bubbling hotpot as we arrived at the cabin at night
  • The table was covered in monitors during the day and then cleared off in the evening for dinner
  • Playing euchre in the cabin
  • Wrapping myself up in a thick wool shawl cardigan and taking my coffee out to the rocking chair on the porch, looking out at the hazy purple mountains in the distance
  • Bombing a series of technical interviews on that same rocking chair. At least I had the view! In a way, this was the beginning of realizing that I really did want to switch career paths.
  • Doing a variety of hikes and experiencing a muscle-gun for the first time
  • Truly starting to absorb, ten to fifteen years late, the whole Strokes/Vampire Weekend thing, after listening for hours and hours in the car
  • Eating pizza out by the fire pit as it started to drizzle

This is why I’m excited about the photo panels: it’s an excuse to create and revisit great memories. I started with three photos and wound up fondly remembering a whole bunch of things from that trip.

Anyway- here’s what my prototype wound up like:

How I Did It

The basic structure is the same as described in the previous post, except applied to multiple photos at a time.

  • I took care to ensure that the size of the photo slots matched up well with the actual photo (when prototyping the ID wallet, I made the slot way too big)
  • I also took my time making straight lines and cutting cleanly. This stuff takes time, and I tend to get impatient, but am working on slowing down and improving my accuracy.

First, I got out some scrap fabric I had. It was already cut into a nice strip so I figured I’d just start there. I used the ruler to square off some of the edges of this scrap fabric, as well as the fusible interfacing. If you want any hope of sewing something in a straight line, use a ruler! It’s annoying, but it pays off.

Then, I traced one of the Instax Polaroid photos I had, onto a piece of card stock. This is a ‘pattern piece’ I’ll use to mark the size of the ID windows.

I used the pattern piece to mark 3 rectangles each on the scrap fabric and the fusible interfacing.

I cut out the fusible interfacing, and then placed it over the corresponding area on the scrap fabric. Then I ironed the adhesive side of the fusible interfacing to the scrap fabric.

(Note to self and anybody out there: do NOT iron anything on your cutting mat. It will warp. I made this mistake and had to frantically press it flat on the ground while it was still hot to get it back to normal.)

Then I marked the inner rectangles (made a ‘pattern piece’ out of card stock representing the drawn inner rectangle) and associated diagonal lines to the corners. Once all the marks were made, I cut out the inner rectangle and snipped the corners. This is exactly what’s done for a wallet ID window.

I sewed the piece I’ve been working with to another piece of scrap fabric with the same dimensions.

Now the two pieces are sewn together.

The way I sewed these pieces together wasn’t well thought out. When I make the next version of this, I’ll want to consider how the seams should look, and where the panel will be sewn onto the jacket. I have two main ideas but haven’t fully decided yet: either the panel will be sandwiched in where the front rectangular piece is attached to the main body piece, or else the panel will be finished neatly and topstitched directly onto the main body of the jacket.

Once the pieces were sewn together, I used the iron to press open the ‘trapezoidal flaps’ made by the diagonal snips in the corner.

I ran a marker around the interior of each ‘open window,’ tracing three new rectangles onto the lower layer of scrap fabric. I also traced the same inner rectangles plus corners, cut out the inner rectangles, snipped the corners, and pressed open the trapezoidal flaps. When laid flat, we have our ID windows, minus the PVC panels that get sandwiched in between.

I happened to have ordered 4 total PVC samples of different thicknesses to try to figure out which would work best (10 or 20-gauge both work). I used the remaining 3 swatches here in my prototype.

The careful observer will remember that at this point there is no ‘pocket’ to hold each photo. What you see in this image above is just a single entity of 3 fabrics sewn together, and placed over a couple of photos sitting on the table.

I held it up to imagine what it might look like:

It looks decent, but I wonder if three rows might be too many. I’m concerned that the photos will bend, or feel uncomfortable when the wearer is seated. Plus, if I want to keep the look of my most recent CLO mockup, the panel cannot be this long. The 3-photo length is more in line with my v1 photo panel idea (in that version I was ambitious/delusional enough to think I could vertically fit five photos!).

The next step was to turn this single-entity ‘sheet’ into a panel capable of actually holding the photos. I didn’t document how I did this, but I just cut a panel out of a different white scrap fabric and then sewed it to my existing panel with the 3 ID windows.

One learning is that the ID windows were too close to the seam. It would be better to position them further away from the fabric edge, allowing for more flexibility when sewing to the backing fabric. This limited space is why I ended up with the white fabric visible as a vertical line.

Next, I’ll finally figure out the design from the neck up and work to address it in CLO. Still not sure if I want a hood on this thing or not.