Also, when pressing seams to the side, press from the front of the fabric, not the back where the seam is. This prevents the little lip of fabric at the seam.

If you need to quilt something quickly on your DM, think about 'shadow' quilting--stitch just a bit away from in the ditch. I have found that a little variation from the exact path is much less noticeable than when stitching directly in the ditch.

It is not a hard and fast rule to always iron to the dark. If I am making HST's for flying geese or star points, I will iron one to the dark and one to the background. That way, they nest nicely and I get a smooth join. If I am making two colour 4 patches and want to swirl the centers, two of those patches will have seams ironed to the light.

Tartan, if you are seeing thread and batting, perhaps you need to adjust your thread tension. There should not be that much of a gap in a pressed open sewn seam.

My understanding is that the 'ditch' is created by pressing to one side; you then have one side higher than the other, and the lower area becomes the ditch. You then stitch very close to the stitches on the ditch side.

If you take the above view, you have no ditch to stitch in if you press your seams open. If you stitched in the middle of a pressed-open seam, you would be stitching on thread, not on fabric. I don't see how that would do anything for your quilt. So if you do 'sitd' on open seams, I would suggest going slightly to one side or the other of the seam line.

I seldom do stitch in the ditch. When I have I like to go about 1/4" from the ditch. I like that look much better.

I wonder if she was stuck in "sewing clothes mode", where we were taught to press seams open. It is better for quilting to press seams to one side for all the reasons stated above.

I like to press to one side. But when I stitch in the ditch, I stitch on the high side. I find that makes the seam lay flat underneath.

i do the same.

I almost always press seams open these days, and quilt a little away from the seam, which sort of gives me a little border for my FMQ.

All that fmq also prevents the seam from stretching out and potentially breaking, so I prefer the flatness of the pressed open seam.

The only time I might press to the side is if I have many seams joining at one point, or if I’m stitching a very dark colour to a very light colour and the seam allowance might show through.

I’ve yet to be taken away in cuffs by the quilting police !!

Thanks everyone for your points on this. I'll try both way so some scraps before doing the quilts. I appreciate all your replies and it gives me several options on which way to do the sitd seams. Will be trying each out.

I do both but found when there are a lot of seams it is better to press open. Too many thickness for the quilting machine. To one side makes nesting easier but I really do prefer pressing open but I prefer 1/2 inch seams instead of the 1/4 inch seams too. Not always possible though.