Thoughtful Pressing for your next quilt project

Every quilter knows that proper pressing is an important step to making a beautiful quilt. But the way you press your seams can be very controversial. I’m sure quilting guilds have split over the “press open” or “press to one side” debate.

But what if there’s a third option?

I propose Thoughtful Pressing.

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What is “Thoughtful Pressing”

Thoughtful Pressing means making your pressing decisions based on the situation in front of you rather than on an arbitrary rule.

Sometimes there are good reasons to press in a way that’s different than what you normally do.

There are three things that will affect how you decide to press your seams:

1. Piecing pattern

The type of piecing you are doing will have a strong influence on your pressing decisions. 

In traditional quilting, it can be very beneficial to press to one side. This is probably why a lot of traditional quilters like this method.

Unfortunately, traditional quilters are often the “quilt police” who feel the need to tell everyone else that it has to be done that way and everything else is wrong.

For example, in a nine patch block, if you press all your seams under the same fabric, that will help the seams “nest” together and make it easier to match point when joining the rows.

Usually when people talk about pressing to one side, it is the dark side. That means that the seam allowances will go under the darker fabric.

But it is not always best to press to the dark side.

If you have a strip set of fabric, it is good to press all the seams in the same direction. That will make it easier to join the pieces and press the whole quilt top when it’s done.

Also, if you have pieces with triangles, pressing away from the triangles can result in pieces that are flatter and have less bulk in the seams.

Eliminating bulk in the seams is a great way to press regardless of fabric colour. 

Anytime you have a lot of seams meeting at one point, you should consider pressing the seam open. That will help make the quilting easier.

If you are piecing with curved seams, the seams will have a direction that they naturally fall. Don’t try to fight the fabric to press it the other way. Press with the curve.

Some modern patterns are designed to have seams pressed open.

If the pattern you are using has pressing directions, then follow that. The designer put it in for good reasons and if you ignore the instructions, you might find out why when it’s too late!

2. Fabric choice

If you have a light, thin fabric and a dark or bright fabric, you will want to watch out for shadows. That is where the dark seam allowance shows under the light fabric.

In this situation, you will want to press seams open to avoid the dark fabric from showing through.

Pressing seams open will put the seam allowances under the same fabric so it’s less likely to show through.

3. Quilting design

The way you are going to quilt your project could impact your pressing choices.

If you are going to do heavy free motion quilting or matchstick quilting, the main thing you want is a flat quilt top. That might mean pressing more seams open.

The heavy quilting designs will stabilize the seams and help hold things together, so it doesn’t matter as much how the seams are pressed.

If you want to do a light quilting design, with lines far apart, the seams won’t have as much support, so they will need to be more secure on their own. That will mean pressing to one side or using a smaller stitch length.

If you want to stitch in the ditch for quilting, I HIGHLY recommend pressing to one side.

Perfect stitching in the ditch will mean quilting in between the two pieces of fabric. If the seam is pressed open, there is nothing for the quilting stitches to hold onto.

It could even weaken the seam if your needle hits threads while stitching.

When seams are pressed to one side, even when you stitch in the ditch, you are quilting through fabric.

So let your finished project be the guide and don’t be intimidated by the quilt police. When you know why you are choosing to press a certain way, the opinions of others won’t matter.

Making mistakes

Of course, even when you decide to press your seams a certain way, you will eventually make a mistake.

One of the most common things that happens to me is that a seam will get “twisted” when joining pieces together. One one end, it is pressed one way and on the other end, it is pressed the other way.

This is another time to be thoughtful.

Will this show on the front of the quilt or cause further problems in the construction?

If it is clearly a problem, then you will have to fix it. But sometimes the pressing won’t be really obvious in the finished project.

Then you need to think about the purpose of the quilt you are making.

If this is a quilt for a national competition, then obviously you will need to fix it. Even the smallest things can make a difference to judges.

But if it is a quilt to put on a child’s bed, then it might not matter at all.

You might decide to leave it in. If you don’t tell, no one will ever know.

So think about your pressing and make your decisions, but don’t be too much of a perfectionist about it.

The purpose of thoughtful pressing is to reduce stress, not add to it.