For our first Tuesday Tutorial, I am pleased to present one of our free McCall’s Quilting University (MQU) video lessons, Pressing Basics. Your host for this video lesson is Beth Hayes, editor-in-chief of McCall’s Quilting.
Note: please click any image to go directly to the video lesson.
For new or experienced quilters, pressing techniques can often be overlooked. But as you’ll learn in this video, you should always plan your pressing for best results. Beth will tell you plainly that she prefers to use steam while pressing, but whether you prefer to press with or without steam, you will certainly benefit from Beth’s tips and demonstrations!
Beth will teach you the best approach for pressing half-square triangles for perfectly flat seams with no puckers or stretched bias seams.
She’ll show you more tips for pressing opposing seams, and getting perfectly aligned star points to lie flat. You just might learn a new technique you haven’t yet tried!
We all enjoy strip piecing, but have you ever ended up with arcing strips that “smile” (or “frown”!) at you? Beth shows you how to avoid this with tips for both sewing and pressing strip sets.
Beth will show you a few special blocks, like these sampler and hexagon star blocks, that don’t really follow the pressing “rules”, and will give you tips and examples of how to deal with them.
Improve your quilting skills by taking a few minutes to watch our free Pressing Basics Quilting lesson video at McCallsQuilting.com – click here. Remember, this is just one of the FREE quilting video lessons available 24-7 from our library of FREE quilting lessons and videos at McCallsQuilting.com.
Don’t miss any of the Tuesday Tutorials – click here to see them all.
Please tell us what you learned from the video, and share your own tips by commenting below – we love to hear from our readers!
I love to sew especially quilting.
LOVE QUILTING
I started to sew when I was in the sixth grade. I made a red wool purse from scraps that my mother gave me from a “coat suit” she had made me. I even put an old white zipper in it that I found around the house. I have been sewing ever since. I learned to quilt in 2003 and became instantly addicted and have been quilting ever since. I belong to a quilting club at my church and we quilt every Thursday as a group. Quilting is so much fun & relaxing.
I have been pressing dry with spray starch. I think I will change up and try it this way. Mine is definitely overkill. Maybe my blocks will be less skewed. I can always learn something new. Thank you.