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Mrs Bowden’s top tip – pressing v ironing

Mrs Bowden’s top tip – pressing v ironing

   Blog    March 22, 2018  |  0
Mrs Bowden’s top tip – pressing v ironing
There is a difference between pressing and ironing folks.

Pressing involves the lifting and placement of the iron in specific areas of the garment to help with the construction.

Ironing is a gliding movement, back and forth over the surface of fabric.

Both are useful but for different stages of making clothes.

When pressing during making, press on the wrong side of the fabric if you are dealing with seams or darts.  This means you can see exactly what you are dealing with before the stitches get ‘set’ by the heat of the iron.
Try to avoid pressing over pins – it can leave a difficult to remove mark on the surface of the fabric and also damage the sole plate of the iron.
On a spare piece of fabric from which you are making the garment, test the heat and how steam affects the fabric before you start making.  Also have a quick glance at the heat setting on the iron before using it to make sure it has not been adjusted in your absence!
Using steam is an important part of dressmaking.  It can be used to shrink fabric, for example if setting in a pure wool sleeve into a jacket.  It can also be used to set a seam in position.  However, you can also easily over-steam fabric making it limp and difficult to work with.

Turn the steam function off on your iron so that you can decide when you want to introduce steam.  Be assertive with your iron!

Using a ham  when pressing darts or working with curves can help enourmously as you will avoid ‘pressing out’ all the shape your are trying to achieve.  A proper ham should be pure wool on one side and cotton on the other so you can match the side to the fabric you are using in terms of heat tolerance.
IRON your fabric before you start cutting out the pattern.  It will really help with the layout and it is more likely you will achieve consistent and accurate pattern pieces to make your garment from.
Hope you have found these little tips helpful.  Until next time!

Until then,

in stitches,

Mrs Bowden x

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