Originally Posted by
Iceblossom
I use a very hot iron (cotton to linen setting) with steam, no starch. If I need it, I also have a spritzing bottle of water. While I consider preparing my fabric and pressing during the creation to be vital to my process, there are few things I hate more in life than having to iron large pieces of yardage. I'm not big on ironing at any time but piecing a quilt back is not one of my happy times.
It's so interesting to me, as a newbie, the dividing lines in the 'quilting community'; prewash vs. no prewash, starch vs steam, tearing vs cutting. I'm sure there's more, but I can only read so much a day.
Another example is your own,
@Iceblossom - you posted in a different thread about pressing your seams open (vs. to the dark or whatever). In the seams example, you provided a convincing opinion and link to read further. I love that kind of thing! I don't have enough practical experience to really have an opinion, but as a beginner with an engineering mind, the 'pressing seams (not open) is a holdover from hand-stitching' seems a reasonable and compelling argument. Do you have reasons for preferring steam to starch?
@kkranig
I am still really struggling. I got one set of strips to come out right. ...I cant tell you how many times I have ripped and resewed. I am beyond frustrated! So, I contacted a local gal that I have talked to about quilting before and who advised me to start with Eleanor Burns Log Cabin quilt. I am going to meet up with her this afternoon and take my fabric to her and she is going to help me get started on the Burns Log Cabin Quilt. I am also going to have her look at the strip that I was working on and see if she can figure out why it isn't coming out. Not fond of switching gears, but I have done it before. I may come back to the quilters academy down the line. Not sure yet.
I'm sorry to hear how frustrated you are! Do you think it's an issue with the process as detailed in Quilter's Academy, or something else? You know, I've only found a few people online who've talked about working their way through the books, and to a person, they got partially through and then mysteriously vanished off the face of the earth (or their blog, at least). It made me wonder if Quilter's Academy is actually killing people, or just driving them insane, ha. I hope things go well for you this afternoon, and you'll let us know how it went!