Hidden Threads

There’s an old saying that wars are won or lost in the trenches.  Well, ironing is like trench warfare.  It isn’t pretty, fun, or comfortable, but good strategy and execution is essential for success.  Ironing may be the scourge of the quilting process, it sure is for me, but doing it well may mean the difference between easy quilt assembly and a nightmare.  Here’s why.

The Three Essentials for a Great Quilt

When I first started my quilting chats with you, I said that craftsmanlike quilting really involves doing three things well.  Just three things:  Cutting a straight line, sewing a straight quarter inch seam, and ironing without distorting your fabric.  Ironing is often the hardest part of this trinity. It looks like it should be easy, and since it’s often the least satisfying element of the whole process, you’re probably eager to get it over with as soon as possible.  The only problem with a slapdash approach to ironing is that it will undo all of your efforts in cutting and seaming precisely.  I’m just going to go ahead and say it here:  poor ironing practices will ruin a quilt before it’s even made.

Understanding Ironing and Fabric

Imagine the strings of a violin.  Now take an imaginary thread and weave it up and down, over and under the violin strings.  This is the way fabric is made.  Look in your mental repertoire and find an image of a loom.  The stable threads are taut like the strings of the violin, and the threads that weave around the stable, taut threads have more stretch.  The little graphic above will give you the general idea.

When you iron along the grain line of the fabric, you are ironing on either the violin strings (the warp) or the side with the thread that goes in and out (the weft).  It’s easy to see that the fabric will behave differently depending on which side you are dealing with.

Understanding Fabric Warp and Weft

If you unroll fabric from the bolt, the long end with the white edges is the warp, the violin strings, and the direction that runs perpendicular to the warp is the weft, the wavy threads.  When you iron your fabric, the heat will ease the cotton fibers, but the fibers on the weft have much more play, so the fabric will ease differently depending on the direction in which you are ironing.  When you’re ironing lots of little pieces that have been sewn together and may be either warp or weft oriented, they will ease with the heat of the iron, and the changes won’t be consistent from piece to piece.  That’s one of the reasons that ironing carefully is so important.

Beware the Bias

The other reason that careful ironing is important is that ironing on a diagonal across the warp and weft can cause more distortion still.  This relative direction of the fabric on a diagonal across the grain lines is called the bias, and is the least stable direction of the fabric.  Bias cuts are used to sew around curves because they have so much stretchiness.

Now that I have you completely terrified, next time we’ll look at some options for ironing well without causing problems: Ironing Basics.

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