IRONING, PRESSING, FLATTENING, AND CREASING The iron is as constantly in use in rough sewing as in fine sewing, because it makes things stay where you put them. If you are pressing with a pair of sad irons, and don't want to fire up the wood stove, there *are* expedients. Some fabrics will hold a crease if pressed with the fingers -- you can bring extra force to bear by pleating the fabric at right angles to the proposed crease, and squeezing the bundle. Some fabrics will hold a crease if rubbed with a hard, smooth object while supported by a flat, hard surface. Sometimes one can control the fabric by smoothing it against the bed of the sewing machine just before it goes under the needle. Flat-felled seams that are top-stitched in this manner are more symmetrical than those that are pressed first, but pre-pressing makes it easier when the fabric is difficult. When all else fails, baste your creases in. Sometimes basting is easier than pressing or ironing: when the job is so small that you can baste it in less time than it would take to heat up the iron, when the fabric is unco-operative, when you are going to maul the fabric around so much that a pressed-in fold is apt to come undone at an inopportune time, when the fold to be pressed is so fiddley that you are apt to burn your fingers . . . Basting will also handle fabrics that just won't crease, but these sometimes answer to having a weight placed on them after they are pressed. Tailors use a wooden "clapper" and hold it only until the steam has dried; I'll use my sleeve board, books, or whatever is handy, and leave the weight until the piece is wanted. The heat in an iron is only to speed up the process; if you put a crease under a weight for several hours, it will hold at least as well as one that's ironed in. Therefore, difficult fabrics can sometimes be tamed by *lowering* the heat of the iron, to allow it to be held in place longer. (Holding the crease until it has cooled also helps.) (Brief digression into laundry: If you fold an un- ironed pillowcase neatly and put it at the bottom of the stack, by the time it has worked its way to the top, it will be nicely pressed. You really shouldn't iron any pillowcases except those that are brought out on rare occasions and ironed just before use. If there should be another Great Depression, you may also iron pillowcases made from coarse, rough fabric.) Contrariwise, when you have a great deal of fabric to iron, you can increase the temperature of the iron and move it faster. This works only when the fabric is damp and the iron is dry -- fabric needs time to absorb steam when it isn't generated right in the fabric. Stubborn fabrics often flatten when ironed through a damp cloth. Laying a wet piece of twill tape over a seam and ironing it dry will make the seam allowances not only stay put, but sproing back into place when disturbed. Heavy duck will flatten little by little if you drape it over the ironing board whenever you iron or press something else. A bit of starch encourages seams to lie down and stay put. Bottled starch in a plant mister is easier to control than spray-can starch. Another plant mister for plain water is a good idea. When you spray starch on dry fabric, give the starch time to soak in before you try to iron it. (If the spray bottle will sit unused more than a few hours, empty it and squirt clean water through the nozzle, or squirt a little starch into the sink every day.) For extra control in dampening, stroke the fabric with a wrung-out washrag. To starch edges or seams without getting starch on other parts, cut a quarter-inch slice off a new cellulose sponge, dampen it with an occasional shot from the plant mister of bottle starch, and keep it handy in an air-tight container. A sponge is less convenient as a water applicator -- it can't be stored ready to use because water lacks preservatives to keep the sponge from stinking, so it must be allowed to dry after use. If you prefer a sponge to a washrag, put it in water a few minutes before it is wanted again, as a dried-out sponge is difficult to wet. Cut several extra slices, and store them to bring out when the one in use gets sour. If you ever get an off-color or bad smell on your starch sponge, replace it or wash it in hot water with bleach (rinse *thoroughly*!), and let the sponge dry between sessions thereafter. Even if souring has never been a problem, allow the sponge to dry whenever you expect to leave it idle longer than overnight. Starch works best inside folds, as it will tend to stick the layers together, and be less inclined to stick to the iron. Irons collect brown deposits whether you use starch or not, and these deposits can rub off on damp fabric and stain it. One great advantage of the dry iron, if you can find one, is that you can attack the deposits with generous amounts of Bon Ami without worrying about getting it into the vents. *Very fine* steel wool is also useful in polishing irons. Get the kind used between coats of fine lacquer. It may be called "steel fur". "Wet and dry" sandpaper can be bought in grits fine enough to use for polishing irons. Thick deposits can be scraped off with a knife, but you must use extreme caution to avoid scratching the soleplate. Blocking ======== An iron moving over damp fabric works mainly by drying the fabric while it is held flat. Fabric can be flattened by holding it in shape while it air dries. One method is to pin it out (or pat it into shape) and cover it with a damp towel; the towel helps to flatten the fabric, and protects it from cats, while the fabric first absorbs water from the towel and then dries out. If there are no cats, the towel may be removed as soon as the fabric has gotten evenly damp, in order to speed the drying. This process is called "blocking", and is particularly useful for hand knits. Things which have been heavily starched are sopping wet, so you can skip the wet towel, and the starch will glue the drying fabric to whatever form has been employed, so you don't need pins unless there are picots to be pulled out, or lace to be stretched. A popular way to block handkerchiefs, nurse's caps, etc. was to dip them in starch, then plaster them onto a mirror or window. In the final days, the enamelled side of the refrigerator was pressed into service, as it could block laundry without interference to its primary purpose. You can block without using starch, but without glue, it's advisable to employ a horizontal surface. Patting with a towel will remove excess water or starch, and persuade the item to lie down. Wet blocking is the only way you can flatten chamois leather that has been stretched over cardboard to present a neat appearance in the store. Don't use starch. Templates ========= Woven fabric has a natural tendency to fold along the straight-of-grain, and it can be persuaded to fold along the cross grain, but when you aren't folding with the threads, straight lines tend to turn into curves, and curves tend to develop corners. The answer is to use some sort of coercion. Most of the time, the fabric will be sewn to another piece just where you want it to fold, but in pockets, patches, appliqu‚, and some kinds of hem, you may need to stick something inside the fold while you press it. When mitering a corner, you fold the bias bit over your needle to force the crease to follow a straight line. In fine patchwork, pieces are sometimes formed over shapes cut from stiff paper. The paper is removed after the patches are overhanded together -- or, if it's a piece that is never to be washed, the papers may be left in as stiffening. You can buy a "pocket former" -- a square of thin metal with each corner rounded off at a different radius. If none of those curves will do, cut your own out of stiff paper or thin card; such a template must be handled with care, but it will last long enough. If you find the allowance on a curve rumpling, pleating, and refusing to lie down, don't try to form the crease and flatten the allowance in one operation. Concentrate on getting the crease into the right place, and let the allowance stand up like the side of a cake pan if it wants to. Then baste the fold, and when you come to the curve, use short stitches close to the crease. Once the crease is secure, you can take steam, starch, and scissors to the puckers in serene confidence. Once pressed, the allowance will probably stay in place, but to play safe, leave the basting in until you've pinned the pocket or whatever, then snip the thread into pieces, and pull each piece out before it gets in the way of the needle. When sewing black on black, the basting is useful for telling me where to focus to see the fold, so I pull each piece out at the last moment. If you intend to cut a square corner round, do so *after* pressing it over a template. The extra fabric gives you a handle. Pressing vs. Ironing ==================== It is customary to make a big deal out of the difference between pressing and ironing, and insist loudly that in sewing one must always *press*. I find that whether I'm laundering or sewing, I do both in nearly every session. True, sliding the iron over fabric (ironing) can stretch or distort the fabric -- but there are also times when bringing the iron straight down onto the fabric (pressing) presses in creases where they aren't wanted, and the movement of the cloth under the iron can be taken advantage of -- ironing can push things into place as easily as it pushes things out of place. The strongest statement I'll make on this subject is "When in doubt, press." And notice which way you are sliding the iron. EOF