How to Quilt>Seam Allowances in Quilt Blocks

Pressing Seam Allowances in Quilt Blocks

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One of the keys to successful machine quilting is to have your seam allowances pressed in the right direction.

Using this fabulous quilting resource, your seam allowances will be pressed for perfect machine quilting results.

Tell me more about this great quilting resource - - -

Pressing seam allowances can be somewhat confusing and even tricky.

And like so many things in quilting, there are "rules" and then there are many times when the rules are broken.

Here are my rules for pressing seam allowances:

toward one side
under the darker fabric
facing in opposite directions
toward the patch with the fewest seams
toward the patch with the least bulky seams (i.e., diamonds with triangles sewn on them tend to be bulky; squares sewn onto squares are generally pretty flat
the direction that makes your points more pointy - or makes things line up better
under a patch that you want to stand above the surrounding patches

Below is the back of the Storm at Sea quilt block and a description of how the seam allowances are pressed and brief explanation of why they are pressed that way.

The back of a Storm at Sea quilt block - showing how the seam allowances are pressed.

	In this patch, the seam allowances for the center square are folded away from the square. If they had been pressed toward the center of the square, there would be a significant amount of bulk, especially when the corners were folded on top of each other. Although my first "rule" is to press seam allowances toward the darker fabric, when it means that would create a bulky area, I press the seam allowances so the quilt will lie flatter.

This area looks somewhat confused! It is just under the top right corner, and shows seam allowances sewn and pressed in opposite directions. This also will allow your quilt to lay flatter. Sometimes you just need to be arbitrary. Overall, I decided that I wanted the large diamonds to be pressed so that all of the seam allowances would be away from the center of the diamond.

	This is an example of pressing the seam allowance so the points will be pointier. Often when there are 6 triangles coming together in the center, when you fold a seam allowance one way the points will be pointier than if you fold it in the other direction.

Front side of the Storm at Sea quilt block

Even with these guidelines, there are exceptions. To see some of them, check out the article on Ironing Seam Allowances in Quilt Blocks.

Happy Quilting!

Penny Halgren

©2009, Penny Halgren
Penny is a quilter of more than 27 years who seeks to interest new quilters and provide them with the resources necessary to create beautiful quilts.

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