I personally think its a matter of preference. When I started quilting a lot of the advice on pressing was "NEVER PRESS OPEN!!" But I had trouble pressing to the side. So I pressed my seams open. Seams in our clothes get pressed open so why can't it work for a quilt? My first quilt came out fine. I had to press the seams open for my denim quilt because of the extra bulk and that thing was hard enough to quilt through without the added bulk.