QUILTER39

When making a sawtooth star using a white background and dark starpoint HST , which way do I iron the seams ?? Always to the dark ? Sometimes it causes seam bulk on back .
Lower alabama quilter

Tartan

​Welcome from Ontario, Canada. I usually iron to the dark but in some patterns it makes too much bulk in places. If you sew with a tighter stitch length, you can press seams open. You can also press to the light when needed but I make sure the dark seam allowance doesn’t extend further then the white.

Jordan

The "rule of thumb" is to press to the dark but in some cases it just does not work because it may cause a lot of bulkiness or you can't "nest" the seams when you sew your blocks together.
Like Tartan said if you shorten your stitch length you can press open your seams.

Also---Welcome to the board. Everyone on here is wonderful and so helpful with advice and suggestions.

Iceblossom

Welcome aboard. I press open about 99% of the time and have been doing so for the last 40 years. Really the only time I press to the side is on curved seams. My quilts are designed to be machine sewn, machine quilted, and machine washed. I believe pressing to the side is an artifact left from hand quilting an is unnecessary with machine sewn seams and irons. I also pin, a lot, but below the seam line. You also need a fairly small stitch, but you need that in modern strip piecing construction methods anyway.

I may annoy the quilt police but there is no really good reason why to seam either way, it's more a matter of preference than anything else anyone will say. The people who press to the side were taught to do it that way...

There are some fun things you can do pressed to the side and maybe you don't have to pin as much, but my accuracy is better and I never have the issue of what to do when you have two white seams and leave yourself a big dark line of fabric in that case. When you have a lot of those diagonal lines coming in together, my open seams aren't as bulky but there are time when I need a hammer too to pound them flat

QuiltE

Welcome Quilter39!

For me, most of the time it's press to the dark side!
Agree that bulk, seam nesting and alignments sometimes can influence me otherwise.

Another that has me "think" at the pressing stage, is how will I want to quilt this?
Sometimes I know I want all seams flipping in/out for a nicer finish when I do the quilting.
This learned from too many times being annoyed when I got to the quilting stage!

Jingle

I press to the dark side.

Welcome to this board.

QuiltnNan

Welcome from western NY and happy quilting

Ariannaquilts

Welcome to the board and happy holidays! My seams go whichever way works best, open, to the dark to the light whatever works!

NJ Quilter

Welcome from NJ. I second everything Iceblossom said. It's exactly how I work as well with no issues so far!

FWLover

I press open a lot when it makes less bulk in a seam. And I always stitch using a very short stitch length. Last year I found 100% cotton thread in 60 weight thread and now I use it exclusively in piecing. I am using my old 50 weight thread only in borders and attaching binding just to use it up. The finer thread adds less bulk to seams. You would be surprised how much thread adds bulk to a seam. It is called Presencia and I get it online from Red Rock Threads. You do need a o be careful when ordering as it is available in other weights as well.