Pressing is not ironing.
That difference is the whole of this episode, the first Technique Tuesday Yvonne recorded, and it is why two quilters can cut identically and end up with blocks that are not the same size. Seams that do not lie flat give you a lumpy quilt. Seams that are not pressed all the way out give you an inaccurate one. Yvonne works the whole lesson with a handful of colourful 2 1/2 inch mini charm squares and nothing else, which is all this technique needs.
Set the Seam Before You Open It
This is the step almost everyone skips, and Yvonne admits she skips it herself when she is in a hurry.
Before you open a seam at all, touch the iron to it while it is still closed. That is setting the seam, and what it does is lock the stitches into the fabric so they cannot pull.
Have you ever pressed a seam open and seen a thin white line along it? That is thread showing through. It happens when the seam was never set, or when your tension is off. One quick touch down with the iron before you open anything prevents it.
Never Lead With the Point of the Iron
The instinct is to flip the seam over and drive the point of the iron into the fold. It works, sort of. The trouble is that where the point lands the fabric folds all the way over, and an inch further along it does not.
Do this instead. Fold the seam over, with the darker fabric on top, or whichever way your pattern tells you to press. Run your finger along the fold and give it a small smoosh. Then run the side of the iron along it, starting at one end and moving slowly.
Look at what you get. A fold that is even the whole length of the seam, with no stretch pulled into it in any direction.
Yvonne is honest about the cost: it takes about a second longer. Her answer is the one worth adopting. To get accuracy in your quilt, what is a second here and a second there?
Alternate, So the Seams Nest
Press one row's seams one way and the next row's the other. When the two rows meet, the allowances inside them face in opposite directions and lock against each other, and the intersection lies flat instead of stacking up.
Get one of them facing the wrong way and nothing is lost. Yvonne gets a row wrong on camera, notices it on the back, sets everything flat again and starts that row over. That is the fix. Press it flat, then press it the way you meant to.
Webbing, and the One Stitch of Space
Webbing is chain piecing that keeps the whole block connected until final assembly, so nothing can get turned around while your back is turned.
The trick to making it work is smaller than you would expect. As each pair goes under the needle, butt it right up against the one before it. No long tail of thread between them, one stitch of space at most.
Two reasons for that. It wastes less thread, which is minor. And it holds the units together firmly when you web the block, which is not minor at all. A long tail lets everything flop around and defeats the point.
When to Backstitch, and When Not To
Yvonne's rule of thumb takes one line. If another seam is going to cross this one, do not backstitch, because that crossing seam will anchor it. If it is an edge that the quilter will have to deal with later, backstitch it.
That is the whole rule. It saves a surprising amount of bulk at the intersections, which is exactly where you least want bulk.
Pressing the Whole Web
Once the units are joined, the block will tell you which way it wants to fold. Look at it before you press, and do not fight it if it is already leaning somewhere sensible.
Then one warning about the big pressing. Do not run the iron along the block and over the seam bumps. When the iron hits a hard bump it shoves the fabric ahead of it, and that is how a square block goes wonky at the last moment. Lift and press down, lift and press down.
Use a stiletto, a seam ripper, or a fingertip to hold a seam flat as it goes under the foot, so it cannot fold back on itself.
Let It Cool Under the Mat
Here is the last habit, and it is the one nobody tells you.
A block that has just been pressed looks perfectly flat while it is warm. As it cools on the table it can warp back out again.
So when you finish pressing, slide the block underneath your wool pressing mat and leave it there while you sew the next one. When you pull it out it will be flat, and it will stay flat.
The kit for all of this is small: a little iron kept beside the machine and a wool pressing mat to work on. Yvonne is refreshingly unsnobbish about it. A name brand iron is nice, and so is the one she picked up for twelve dollars at a big box store. What matters is that it is small, it is within reach, and it gets properly hot.
