As promised I am going to give you some more tips on pressing. Pressing is so important to achieving good piecing that I think it's worth taking the time to do it properly. Also, if you put your ironing board across the room, you will get a little exercise. And if you keep your ironing board two floors down, you'll be thin by August. Bonus!
When pressing long strip sets, it really important to keep them as straight as possible. If you're not careful, you can end up with strip sets that look like rainbows. While rainbows are pretty, they are a real bugger to sub cut. In the following steps, I'll give you my tips for keeping them straight and easy to cut.
The first thing I do is set the seam while the strip set is still closed as it was when I sewed it. Careful not to distort it - keep it as straight as possible.
Then I push the top piece open with my fingers - careful not to move the bottom piece. Follow your fingers with the iron, but don't jam the point of the iron in the seam.
Continue this way until the strip set is pressed open completely.
Now for the cool part: Leave the first stripset on the ironing board and lay the next one on top. Line the sewn edge up with the seam line. Set the seam and open it with your fingers like you did the first one.
The strip set on the bottom will act as a stablizer for the second one. Keep this up, stack one on another until it is too high. Then start again. Cool, huh? Thought you might like it.
~Amy
No comments:
Post a Comment