Friday Quilt Class: Pressing for Perfection

The way you press your seams can

make a big difference when it comes

to precision in your work.  I love

precision but I also want quilting to

be enjoyable so I have a few easy

pointers to help you be precise.

I know some quilters who press their

seams open ~ always.  I don't, I rarely

do and I'll show you the times I do.

I think pressing your seams to the

side is a great aid to precise quilting.

That is what we will look at today.

Quilting is all about bringing small

pieces of fabric together and that

means lots of seams!  I generally

press my seams to the dark fabric.

When we are then sewing 2 units

together I like to "lock" that seam

together as shown above.  You can

see the pressed seams are opposing

each other and when you bring those

units together to pin you can feel

them "lock" together.

As a result, the points on this

4-patch are perfect.

Let's say we want to make this

pinwheel block from Half Square

Triangles.  All the seams on these

HST's are pressed to the dark fabric.

We will lay them out in 2 rows

as shown.

Now we will sew the 2 rows together.

When we are pinning the seam we want

to make sure the seams "lock" together

where the points will be ~ this is very

important.

After sewing the points are perfect.

Now we have to think about the next

seams, press the seam in row 1 to the

left and the seam in row 2 to the right.

"Lock" those opposing seams when pinning

and sew your seam taking care to maintain

a 1/4" seam.

Here is the block, a pinwheel

with very precise points.

Now is one of the times when

I press a seam open.  There are

so many pieces of fabric coming

together in the center of this block,

it is best to press the seam open

to reduce bulk.

Now let's work on this Flying

Geese unit that has some different

rules.  We will make it from 4

Half Square Triangles, lay them

out as shown but in this case the

seams of the 2 HST's on the left

have their seams pressed to the

dark fabric but the 2 HST's on the

right have their seams pressed to

the light fabric.

When we pin the units together

we will be able to "lock" these

seams together and achieve the

desired perfect points as shown above.

We could only make this happen by

planning our pressing method beforehand.

We needed to press some seams to the light

fabric to make this happen.

Once again, after sewing the rows together

we will press the seam in row 1 to the left

and the seam in row 2 to the right so we

can "lock" them together.

And there is our finished block.  Remember

to press your final seam open to reduce bulk.

Of course these methods take

practice as anything does, but the

more you do the better you will

become at achieving precision

in your quilting.

Good Luck!

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