[jiggawatts]

> first stiffening the cloth with starch so it could be more predictably moved from place to place.

Hah! I thought I was the only one to have this notion...

I was thinking of impregnating cloth with a hard wax similar to candle wax and then melting it out after automated sewing.

Starch makes more sense from a cleanup perspective, but it may not have the required control over stiffness or other useful properties.

For example, wax would allow temporary joins using pressing and heating, which would then hold the material in place before the permanent sewing.