Pressing – you need the right tools

NOTE: I may take next week off from my newsletter and blog; I will play it by ear. I am in the hunt for a car and it is consuming my time.

I have accumulated a great stash of pressing tools and products. Whether you quilt, sew garments, or both, you need a good selection of pressing tools. It took a while to accumulate my tools, and as I took photos for this post, I realized that I had hundreds of dollars invested in pressing tools!

I garment sew as well as make quilts, so I have a wide variety of pressing tools:

Going through one-by-one (and these are not the sexiest photos I’ve ever used on my blog):

Ham AND holder, for garment sewing. A ham without a holder is not especially useful. It’s been a while since I bought this pair, but at the time, it was hard to find a full-sized, hard stuffed ham. I have a smaller ham too, which can be useful. My ham is stuffed with sawdust for firmness and to absorb the moisture from steam.

The holder allows me to position it just the way I need it. Hams are designed with variety of curves. Our bodies are a mass of curves, and we need to be able to match the ham with the curves of our clothing and garments with the ham.

Hams have two sides: a cotton side for fabrics that can take higher heat, and a wool or poly side for more delicate fabric.  I use my ham mostly curves: darts, sleeve caps, collars, etc. Roll the ham on its side and use the seam between the two sides for smaller curves. When I steam a curve and let it dry on the ham, the fabric or garment will retain the memory of that curve.

I will also use it as a third hand: I’ll pin something to it that needs stretching, pin items to braid or stack together, etc.

Seam clappers are used to create a crisp, flat, seam or pleat. They are great for precision piecing. I’ll steam or press my seam, then immediately put the clapper over the seam until the fabric cools. The wood will absorb the heat and/or steam and set the crease of the seam.

A clapped seam will stay flat over time, while an unclapped seam will tend to curl up over time. Some newer sewers have “discovered” clappers and they are all the rage for piecers right now.

This is a point presser with multiple surfaces. I cannot find the little cushioned covers that I sometimes used with this tool. I can’t exactly pinpoint when I use it, but when I need it, it is the perfect tool for some odd joining or seam.

Now three tools for tubular types of situations:

I love this tool! I don’t know the exact name for it, but it’s for pressing long seams in a tube, like a hanging sleeve. It is also good for situations where I don’t want the profile of the seam to show on the outside of my quilt or garment. When I press my seam on this tool, I’m are only pressing the actual seam line, not the surrounding area.

If I need an even skinnier tool, this is my tool. I use this for pressing seams in tight and skinny areas. I will slip it inside the piece and press on the seamline only, in a similar fashion to the tool above.

A sleeve presser: I couldn’t live without it when constructing garments with sleeves. It allows me to press the whole sleeve without having a crease line.

Wool pressing mats. They are huge now and for good reason. Wool is dense, firm and heat resistant. When I press atop a wool mat, the mat will push the steam and/or heat right back at the fabric. It’s like ironing or pressing from both sides at once. It will press my fabric much faster than it would on a traditional ironing board surface.

It has the added bonus of allowing me to press on top of surfaces that could melt, like my cutting mat. Because it absorbs the heat, I can sit my wool mat right on top of my cutting mat and it will not warp the surface. There are several types of mats to consider, but that is a subject for another post.

Ah, the Seams Perfect Seam Whacker – a must! If I’ve got a situation with a really fat seam, I will steam heavily, then whack it once or twice. Boom, it will lay flat. I made a LeMoyne Star and whacked that center seam where there were  six (?) seams coming together, and that sucker was f l a t!

I don’t use this often, but sometimes I will need to press something while I hold it in my hand. For the life of me I can’t think of a specific situation right now, but I know I use this on occasion. I’m always glad I have one on hand.

Pressing cloths. A more traditional pressing cloth is made of a cotton muslin like material. A pressing cloth protects both the iron and the fabric against too much heat/scotching or from the shine that will happen on some delicate fabric after pressing.

I also use it if I’m not sure a hand dye has stable color, or, to protect my iron from the possibility of fusibles or glue. I use my silk organza pressing cloth on delicate fabrics or situations where I need to see through to make sure my seams are straight.

It is also useful if I need to press a quilt top from the back; if I use an organza pressing cloth to press, it will skim over all those seams and not flip them.

I am a bad girl and am sometimes careless with my iron. When I gunk up my soleplate with fusible, glue or some surface design material, I have to stop and clean up my iron, lest it contaminate my fabric with gunk. There are all sorts of products out there and I’ve tried them all I think. My favs are above: a wet terry cloth, two kinds of commercial iron cleaner and good ole steel wool.

And most of all, you need a good iron. This subject is deep, and opinions run the gamut. People are passionate about what they love and hate about their irons!

I LOVE, LOVE my LAURASTAR steam generator. I could not live without it. It somehow generates tons of steam, yet I can hold my hand to the steam and not be burned. It is a miracle worker in my opinion. It is superb for garments for steaming set-in sleeves and such.

I also have the “active board” which can suck my fabric to the board or puff it up away from the board. No matter what, you want to find an iron that you LOVE and don’t stop looking until you do!

Press on!

I’ll share at:

Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday
and
Finished or Not Friday.