Revisiting Pressing Matters

Apparently I've been blogging for just over a decade?!?  As I was working on a couple projects during our gray typical January the past couple weeks, I recalled writing a blogpost about "pressing".  When I went back to revisit it -- there is actually a series of three posts.  

I think good pressing habits make for better piecing and while the tips and techniques I shared in these tutorials aren't the only best practices, they certainly have served me well over the past 30 years of piecing.

The first one deals with the basics that apply to any piecing project.  

 https://maryhueyquilts.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-first-tutorial-pressing-basics-for.html

Over the past couple weeks I've been turning a layer cake into the sampler blocks from the 2021 summer time Moda sampler -- thirteen of the fourteen 12" blocks are pieced along with four 6" blocks and two 4" blocks.  I have to say the wool pressing pads that have become so popular are a game changer! 

One thing you will notice when reading that post is I don't press seams open.  It wasn't a "thing" back in the "old" days when I learned to piece and I have tried it off and on over the past couple years but I'm not a fan.  My piecing skill depends on a side-pressed seam too much.

\All that is left of the layer cake is this pile of scraps!  I was lucky to find a couple of the prints which were released in 2019 to fill in some gaps and make a binding.  I was wise enough to purchase a two yard length of the large scale print from the collection so that will be the borders!

The second tutorial in the series shares tips I learned from teaching mentor, the marvelous Mary Ellen Hopkins.  That woman could stream line any process which fit right into my work ethic.  Chain-piecing was new to me when I started taking workshops with Mary Ellen and this tutorial shares some of what I learned from her about pressing.

https://maryhueyquilts.blogspot.com/2013/10/pressing-basics-for-piecing-part-2.html

I have a side-project going as leaders and enders making these cute scrappy star blocks inspired by a pattern shared by The Stash Bandit (Diane Harris) in the August 2022 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting.  The fabrics are being sourced out of my 2 1/2" scrap stash -- squares, triangles, and strips.  No idea yet how large this quilt will be or what it's destiny might be once finished -- I'm just having fun piecing the blocks!

The third tutorial has applied to this scrappy project -- it is my "go-to" method for edge-to-edge block settings regardless of whether the blocks are an even grid or an odd grid -- the method always applies!! And I find it especially useful for those patterns where the designer never mentions "how to press" the blocks!

https://maryhueyquilts.blogspot.com/2013/10/pressing-basics-for-piecing-part-3.html

I'll bet you have some go-to tips I've missed when it comes to pressing -- share them in the comments so we can all learn more!

Looking forward to more guilt-free gray winter days of piecing!  

Mary