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!

Thanks, that helps a lot. Maybe I will get flatter blocks.

Excellent!

you make locking the 8 points together look easy. I never have that much luck will give you methods a try

Love this... it is what I try and achieve! Thanks for the great tut!

This was great! Have to bookmark this!!!!

Thank you!

Nice, clear instructions

You have done an excellent tute. not only on pressing, but nicely shown piecing, too, Every beginner should watch this. You have made it look so simple and easy.

Thanks.

Great tutorial. Have bookmarked it for future reference.

Thanks for taking the time to show us. I had a few pressing questions and this certainly helped.

Thanks....great tut! I had always had trouble achieving this, it's great!

Wow, this is wonderful. Thanks so much.

Thanks for this! You certainly do beautiful work! Do you use steam or not?

Thank-you sew much for this tute! I've always wondered about the deal with which way to press seams, this makes sense!

thank you for this tute

Since my iron & I are not on intimate terms after 57yrs (I despise ironing)I need all the tips I can get!

Thanks for posting.

Thanks so much for that tutorial. I'm new at quilting and it sure helped a lot.

very helpful, thanks for sharing!!

A wonderful tute. I bookmarked it for easy reference. Thank you.

Thanks for the excellent tutorial.

Thanks. This is very timely, I am working on pinwheels and HST's.

thanks that is a very good description of what I need to do. Now isn't this also important when quilting the top? whether a design or SID

Thank you!

Great tips! Thank you!!

What a fantastic tutorial you took the time to do for us. Thank you so much. By trial and error I discovered how to do my pinwheels........wish I had seen your tutorial, before making so many "bulky" mistakes.

What a great tutorial!!! Your work is so precise and beautiful.

Thank you!

Thanks for the great tutorial on seams. This would also be great for a begining quilter to learn.

Great Tute. This is the way I was taught. Working with my BOTM's now I sometimes press seams open because the fabric around the designs is very thin white, so I want it to look less bulky. I usually press to the dark, "locking" the seams so they oppose each other.