Pressing seams can be a hot button issue amongst quilters. Do you press to the sides and nest the seams or press your seams open? Throw in the fact that some quilters use both in the same block, nesting the seams that need to match up and pressing the cross section seams open, and there are a lot of ways this can be done…

Confession: as a pattern writer, I feel a little silly even including pressing instructions at all. I feel like most people who use the patterns are going to ignore the pressing instructions and just use whatever method works best for them. I do include the pressing instructions for people who want them, but if I instruct to nest the seams and you want to press them open instead… Well, you aren’t going to hurt my feelings. The best pressing method is the one that works best for you. I certainly have my opinion on which method works best for ME, but your experience may not be the same. Each methods has it’s advantages and disadvantages. So, I’m going to go over all three pressing methods mentioned above, and you can choose what you like. I’ll also tell you what I like to do for this pattern and why. BUT, ultimately your quilt, your rules…

Pressing to the sides and nesting the seams

This is what I do 99% of the time. It works out great for this quilt because of the checkerboard style. Since you are alternating between high volumes and low volumes, you can press your seams to the dark side and they will nest beautifully.

What is a nested seam anyway? If you aren’t familiar with nested seams, it involves pressing the seams that have to meet up in opposite directions. When you place them right sides together, you can line the seams up easily because the two seams going in opposite directions will “nest” together making a ridge that you can feel to ensure your seams are lined up. If you want to pin it, you can either put a pin just before and a pin just after the seam or you can use one pin to go diagonally through each seam. I have a video of me nesting the seams on my Instagram if you want to check it out.

Pressing to the dark side when you can is the best way to go to avoid the possibility of shadow from the darker color showing through the lighter color. For the cross section seams, I like to press those towards whichever row has the most high volume pieces. By doing this, you make it so that no matter what direction you turn your blocks, all of the seams can still nest when you go to sew the blocks together.

When I first started quilting, I read somewhere that you are supposed to press your seams open. If that’s what works best for you, then GREAT, do that. But for me, when I saw a blog post somewhere about nesting seams to get them to line up better it was a GAME CHANGER for me. I found it to be easier to do, quicker, and it gave me better results for matching up the seams.

Cons:
– This does make a little more bulk in the direction of the seams that you had to match up, and even a little more in those cross section seams. Another confession: I am not scared of this slight increase in bulk at the seams. I make a lot of t-shirt quilts and free motion quilt through t-shirts, sweatshirts, and even denim sometimes. This makes quilting through a few extra layers of regular quilting cotton look pretty inconsequential. Again, this is MY reasoning. If that little extra bulk worries YOU, press it the way YOU want to. It’s also worth noting that I do quilt all of my quilts myself on a domestic machine. If you’re going to send your quilt off to be longarmed, you should do whatever the longarmer instructs.

– You can’t always press your fabrics to the dark side. We saw this with those cross section seams in the picture above. Plus, not every pattern alternates perfectly between light fabrics and dark fabric. The dark fabric may show through the lighter fabric and cause a shadow if you’re using thinner fabrics.

Pressing the seams open

This is my least favorite method. I RARELY ever do this. In fact, the only time I ever do this is when I press the seams in my binding and when I test patterns for other quilters. If the instructions say to press the seams open I will. I feel like if you are testing a pattern, you need to make it as instructed to be able to know if everything works correctly. If I’m just making a pattern because I want to, I am definitely one of THOSE people who ignores the pressing instructions and does whatever I want.

Pros:
– Less bulk at the seams. This only adds one extra layer of fabric at the seams instead of two layers when you nest the seams.

– You don’t have to worry about the darker fabric showing through the lighter fabric at the seams.

Cons:
– In my opinion it makes it a lot more difficult to match up the seams, but really who cares what I think? If you don’t think it makes it harder then go for it.

– Some people think it makes for a weaker seam. I get the logic behind this one. Pressing the seams open does pull more on the threads, and I noticed the first few stitches wanted to pop open when I tested this theory. However, I don’t know that this alone would make me rule this method out if it were actually something I wanted to do. I’ve never had enough stitches come undone to cause it to undo past the seam allowance, and I use plenty of quilting to secure those seams. A simple backstitch will take care of this if it’s something you’re worried about.

– It takes a lot longer than nesting the seams, for me anyway.

Pressing to the sides for the first seams and then pressing the cross section seams open

I do this sometimes with hour glass blocks and pinwheels. If you have trouble getting your cross section seam to lay flat, this might help you.

Pros:
– You don’t have to worry about the darker fabric showing through the lighter fabric.

– You will have a little less bulk at the cross section seam since you pressed it open.

– As mentioned above, your block will lay nice and flat. Another confession: I tend to not worry about this so much. I’ve never had trouble getting the block to lay flat with just pressing from the top of the block, and I use a lot of quilting to further nail that bulk down flat.

Cons:
– That cross sections seam that you pressed open will pretty much have all the same disadvantages you’d run into with pressing all of the seams open.

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