Seams to Me

I am working on some secret sewing right now, and trying to get started on my Christmas sewing, so I don't have a lot I can share here. But I can use a couple of pictures to show you what I have been thinking about. 

When you sew blocks together for a quilt, how do you press the seams? Do you press to one side? Do you press them open? Do you do a little of both? Press to the dark side if there is one? There are many different answers here. I do a little of both, but, I am thinking about changing my ways and here is why:

 This is the back of one of my blocks. As I sewed each seam, I pressed it to the side. I used a good bit of steam and then pressed the entire block again when it was finished.

You can see here, in spite of my best efforts, this block is not as flat as I would like it to be. I did 15 blocks like this and you can see that there are so many seam that overlap, it is hard to keep it flat.

 This is the very last block for this quilt top. I decided to experiment with it and press every seam open on this block. This is obviously the back, but I think it looks much better.

You can see here the seams lie much flatter than the other block, especially where so many seams intersect. This is clearly the best option for blocks with lots of intersecting seams.

 One more comparison for you. This is a close up of the top side of the two blocks. Here, you can clearly see that this block is not lying very flat.

And here you can see a much flatter block on the top side. I was not really surprised by this. A part of me knew it would be so.

I think the main reason I don't press seams open all the time is that I am lazy. It takes a wee bit more effort to open the seam and run the iron through it, than to just press it to the side. And I think I also thought it slowed me down in my piecing. But, it really didn't take me any longer to press seams open in the last block, than to press to the side in the other blocks. I probably used less steam too.

So, that's my lesson for today. What do you think? Happy Friday!

Hello October!

Sorry I have been out of touch for awhile. I spent the last week of September and the first week of October in North Carolina with my kids and grand kids. Then, when I returned home I had some medical stuff to take care of. But I am back in the saddle now and sewing most days, in some fashion or another.

 I finished up the 100 Days 100 Blocks challenge on Instagram. I really loved making all those blocks and posting each day. In fact, I kind of miss the having to post a picture a day over there. Never thought I would feel that way.

I am sort of leaning towards this, or a similar arrangement of these blocks for the finished quilt. I have a bunch of other commitments so it may be awhile before I get to them. I have made a list of all the sewing I need to do and some of the things have deadlines. I have plenty to keep me busy, that's for sure.

 It's m y favorite time of year for cooking and baking too. I baked these two loaves of bread yesterday. They are so yoummy!

 Then there is this pear and oatmeal breakfast bake from the new Smitten Kitchen cookbook. This is a very tasty recipe. I am cooking a bunch of recipes from that new book these next few weeks. It's been awhile since I had so many recipes I wanted to try.

And I bought a couple of pie pumpkins and roasted them for use in baking. These are a few of the seeds, I am drying them out and giving them to my daughter in NC. They have a large yard and I thought maybe they could try and grow some next year. It would be fun for the kids.

So lots going on, and I will try to show you pictures when I can, of the things that are not surprises for people. Happy fall. Enjoy the weather. Talk to you soon.