Do You PRESS or IRON your Yardage before starting to cut for piecing?
 

So, I have been interested in clarification on this for a while. After you have prewashed and dried you fabric (I like to fully dry mine so that all shrinkage is achieved), do you press it or iron it? I generally start with a press, picking up and moving the iron a few inches at a time across the fabric surface but then I lightly move the iron across the surface as well.

I've heard many times that there should be no ironing in quilting. Is this true or is it okay to iron the large yardage pieces before they are cut?

Iron on new fabric, and I attempt to press my blocks, but am not always successful. I don't like to stretch my seams.....

I don't prewash anymore but I do iron new fabric with Best Press before cutting.

I cut the amount of fabric I need in 1/4 or 1/2 yards. I starch my fabric very stiff before cutting. I cover my ironing surface with white muslin. Any bleeding fabric will show immediately and get pre washed.

I iron - not press - fabric before I cut it. But, that is just me and probably not right!

I start out pressing... no stretching when pressing.. but then I lapse and iron. I've never had any bad results but I do feel guilty. ;)

I always press/iron my fabric! Who wants to try to cut/sew on a piece that has fold lines and wrinkles in it? Yuck! And I am a firm believer that the pressing is the difference between that handmade vs homemade appearance of a project.

All fabric that enters my home is washed, dried, and ironed.

If I don't plan to use the fabric for an immediate project, it gets folded on a magazine board (like a comic board but larger) and labeled. Otherwise, my sewing room would be a mess. :)

I iron (not press) all fabric before I cut. It gets starched at this point

I also press/starch all my final blocks, before I assemble the quilt.


I ALWAYS starch my backing fabric before I start my quilting (on a domestic)

Since I haven't found a fabric yet that didn't shrink after it was washed, I wash everything that comes into the house, dry it, fold it and put it away, then iron just before using them.

I use spray sizing most of the time. When I iron the fabric, I always push the iron with the grain of the fabric so there is no stretching going on, and I try to make sure of this when using smaller scraps before ironing. My iron has a water spray feature, but since it has to be refilled often, I prefer to keep a spray bottle handy to help with any deep wrinkles.

When sewing seams, I press as I go, rather than iron. Again, I try to make sure I know where the straight of the grain is to avoid any possible stretching.