Walking Foot Quilting and Why Pressing Matters

There are many quilters who never get further than making tops. The whole idea of layering, basting and stitching their quilts fills them with fear. In the Walking Foot Quilting— Beyond the Ditch! online workshop, Catherine Redford will take the mystery out of successful preparation and teach lots of ideas for finishing quilts, all without any scary free-motion stitching.

You will learn to press and baste your quilts before setting off with the feed dogs engaged and the walking foot in control to maintain the stitch length. It’s not all stitch in the ditch either! You will explore all manner of straight and curvy lines. You will move on to altered stitches, and try some fun grids. Combined stitches add extra design elements before you learn to cope with sharp points and finish with a beautiful spiral.

With practical advice and a fresh attitude towards quilting, you will be encouraged to step out and quilt their own quilts. The very short learning curve means that with a little attention to detail, success is virtually guaranteed!

Ever wonder about whether or not you should be pressing your seams to one side or pressing them open? Catherine will discuss and demonstrate the benefits to both options in this video lesson from the workshop.

Catherine R.:  When I took my first quilting classes, I was taught to press to one side. That way my seams would nest. I could press away from the dark, so that I wouldn’t have shadowing on my quilts. But as time has gone on, there’s been interest in pressing your seems open. What happens then is you get a flat quilt, so you don’t get those dips and rises that you get when you press to one side. It definitely gives a more modern, crisp look to your quilts. That’s what we’re going to look at now.

I just have one seam left to press on this top, here. Again, we’re just going to press while it’s still closed, but this time we’re going to press open. Obviously, I can’t press it on the front, because I do need to see the back. So here we are. Let’s arrange this so that we make space for the whole thing on here. Okay. Now, I can just run my finger along and use the iron.

But this handy tool here will help me. This is a pressing stick. You can buy a fancy one like this from your quilt store, or I’m sure you could go to a do-it-yourself shop and get something a whole lot cheaper. But it is beautifully smooth, so bear that in mind. It’s, maybe … What’s that? About an inch and a half across or half round it’s about an inch and a half.

Okay, now I’ve started it. I’m going to use the tip of my iron, and I’m going to run down that seam. Now, with having that stick in place, what it does is it keeps the rest of the quilt top out of the way, because then I don’t catch the intersecting seams. I’m just doing that slowly so it holds it down. There we are. As if by magic it is pressed open. You can see on this one, I pressed all the seams open. Now, this means, especially when you’ve got a lot of pale fabrics, like I’ve got this off-white background, it means all the color is pressed in on itself. So you do get less problems with shadowing and a little less problems with those loose threads hanging out over the edge and being seen.

Anyway, once that’s pressed, move that out of the way. We’ll just lay this down flat, and we’ll give this one final press. Again, I try not to scrub, like if I was pressing my husband’s shirt. I get him to do all his own shirts these days. He’s much more patient than I am. Makes a much better job. We’ll just sort of, as I lift it up, as I move it, I lift it up, so I’m not actually pressing while I’m moving it. It’s more of a press down, lift up. That way it gives a nice smooth finish. Like said, this wool mat retains the heat and that just finishes the pressing off. Now, look. A lovely, flat quilt top to practice our quilting stitch on.

Whether you want to press them to one side like this one, or you press them open, that’s up to you. It depends what style quilt you’ve got, just how you’re going to quilt it.

Learn more by checking out Walking Foot Quilting— Beyond the Ditch! with Catherine Redford. The workshop starts on April 17, 2020 and runs through May 15, 2020.  Registration ends on May 1.