Pressing-as-you-sew is a technique that you can use to create professional-looking garments. Steaming or pressing your fabric before you cut your pattern helps with pre-shrinkage and accuracy of grainlines and cutting. Pressing will help your fabric sit better and assist in making seam lines, darts and sewn edges smooth and crisp.
Some hot tips to help with pressing⬇⬇⬇
>Pressing is not ironing😉 - while for both of these tasks you use your iron, pressing involves applying heat and steam to the surface of your fabric, sometimes without the plate of the iron touching the fabric. The only movement that is involved is an up and down action. Ironing with a back and forth motion (as you would iron a garment) can misshape the fabric surface, seams and finishes.
>Pressing cloth. Always test your iron on a small area of your fabric first. Some fabrics when pressed will have a shine on the surface of the fabric. This is often evident with woollen fabrics. To prevent this use a pressing cloth between your fabric and the iron. The pressing cloth can be a piece of cotton or linen fabric, or an old tea towel will do the trick!
>Steam. Test your fabric first, but use steam! This will help settle the fabric. A good trick here is to not move your fabric/garment straight after pressing/steaming. Let it cool down first to 'set' the fabric. While the fabric is warm/heated, moving it can distort it.
>Steaming stubborn fabrics. Some fabrics can be stubborn to press, along with your pressing cloth, you can spay a small amount of water onto the cloth and then press/steam. The extra steam created can help iron our creases and crinkle.
>Use the tip of the iron. The tip of the iron is helpful for small areas that require pressing such as collars/darts.
>Seam shadow. If you find the seam allowance is leaving a line on the outside of your garment, use a piece of cardboard between the seam allowance and garment then press.
While it might seem like extra steps in the making process, pressing-as-you-sew can help to elevate your me-made garments!