It’s a pretty basic fact that in quilting, ironing is essential. But did you know that you need to iron at two different stages of the quilting process? In this article, we’ll take a look at the different times that you need to iron, what iron would be best, and a few tips on how to iron for quilting with success.
Ironing is crucial at the beginning stage. When you get your fabric home from the local fabric store or when it’s delivered to you from online, one of the first steps of the quilting process is to wash and iron all that fabric. You must do this before you start cutting any of the shapes out, especially if you ever want to wash your quilt. This is because different types of fabric shrink at different rates, and if you didn’t wash, dry, and iron all the fabric first, you would stitch together a beautiful quilt that might come apart at the seams later, despite your exquisite sewing. On a practical note, you also want your fabric to be clean and flat, both which will make cutting and sewing, and lining everything up as easy as possible.
For the first ironing task, a regular sized iron is best so you can get the job done as fast as possible. This next task will require a mini iron. As you sew quilt blocks together, you will need to press the seams. A regular sized iron would distort the fabric and make the shapes not quite right. Instead, use a mini iron. Run your fingers along the seam first, then use the mini iron to press the seam. As long as you don’t run the iron back and forth, which could cause bunching, you and your mini iron will have wonderful flat seams in no time!
