This week, I am going to share two of my favorite piecing tips that I use daily in quilting. In my last posts on rulers, I already shared one of my piecing favorite tips: measuring units as you go for accurate piecing. This week, I’ll share two more tips that help you to achieve accurate piecing. This is something we all want!
Pinning
Besides accurate cutting, the best tip I can offer to you on piecing is to use pins. This is a step I have skipped once in a while and I often regret it. Out comes the seam ripper! This step is just as important whether you are piecing together two 1″ squares or your joining two pieced units.
First up, is the example with two small squares.
Notice the stitched piece on the left compared to the one on the right. See how a piece of the bottom square (left photo) is visible at the top? That means these squares shifted during stitching because they were not pinned. The stitched piece on the right was pinned.
Once that uneven unit is pressed open you can see the unevenness:
See the difference above? Now imagine if you had a lot of these units that were “off” like this and you were trying to piece them into a block. You would have a lot of trouble getting seams to line up and have the block measure correctly.
Next up, is using pins when joining pieced units. This is the best way to make sure seams are matched up to your liking. Here is an example of matching up two units with diagonal seams:
When joining the above HSTs, I want the diagonal seams to line up so they create the perfect point. I started with placing the units on top of each other and then peeling back the top unit to align the seams, then I pinned there first before pinning the rest. You can see in the last photo how well the two diagonal seams lined up to create the point.
This next example shows joining two blocks and how pinning helps. I have squares and the diagonal lines of the half-square triangle blocks to match up:
I started by lining up the center seam of the blocks and pinning there first, then pinning the rest before stitching.
See how everything lines up nicely (last photo, above)? If I hadn’t pinned it, show knows what it would look like.
Pressing
This step is also very important when piecing. Whether you press smaller units with a pressing stick or an iron, pressing seams also helps with accurate piecing. For smaller units, I often use my pressing stick (I like open seams) to prepare a unit for joining to another.
For blocks, with many seams, I go to the ironing board and iron. If a seam is not pressed flat, whether you press seams open or to the side, it can effect the accuracy in piecing that unit or blocks to one another. I like to press my seams open like I mentioned above. I find it gives me more accurate measurements, but either way you choose to press your seams, make sure no fabric is bunched up anywhere and the seam lays flat on both sides of your piece.
The seam on the left was not pressed correctly to lay flat on the bottom and the top. You can see the red strip is creased a bit over the seam. The photo on the right shows the seam pressed correctly. That red strip is now flat with no fabric creased. Now this block will measure correctly.
Make sure to PRESS when pressing blocks, not iron. The action of moving the iron back and forth over a seam can distort it and stretch your pieced unit or block out of shape, especially if it contains bias seams.
Also, if you can, purchase a wool pressing mat. The heat from your iron penetrates these 100% wool mats. Because of that, it works to press your unit on both sides at the same time! No flipping of your piece is needed. It also helps to reduce stretching or distorting of seams because of the cushioning provided by the mat.
Here’s my mini video tutorial on pressing:
That’s it for this week. Come back next week for piecing shortcut favorites of mine.
Happy Quilting!
Deanne
