Sewing and the Art of Pressing 
Pressing or Ironing is a very useful technique when sewing and not just for the finished garment. Here are some tips and descriptions of tools to help you along the way with your sewing projects.
Pressing Cloths: This is a peice of material that is placed between the iron and the item to be ironed. It can help keep your iron clean and protect the item of fabric from the extremes of heat. To make your own press cloth use muslin or silk organza as they are soft and see-through. I use the left over muslin squares from when my children were babies. Wool can be good for pressing items that you don’t want crushed as such.
Pressing machines: These are machines that have a wide pressing plate and can be used as a clamp over the material, they give a crisp brand new look that can’t be achieved with an ordinary iron.
Iron: We all have one of these even if it doesn’t get used much. There are in fact several different types which can be used for different stages of sewing projects.
Steamer: Thes are used to remove wrinkles from fabrics. You can get smaller travel type steamers which are handy. Yo uuse them by guiding the steam over the fabric but not touching it, until the creases and wrinkles disappear. These are bvest used for delicate fabrics and ones that you don’t want to crush such as velvet.
Pressing Sleeve: These are fabric tube shaped pieces of stuffed material and the go inside the sleeves of for example a shirt, to allow you to get a good even press. If you blast the sleeve with this in with steam and let it dry it leaves an arm shape without the edges.
Tailor’s Ham and Seam Roll: These are different sized tubes of fabric (well one is ‘ham’ shaped) with wool on one side and cotton on another to allow for pressing wool and all othe types of fabric, they can be used for sleeves, darts, seams and curved areas of fabric.
Iron Shoe: Used insteam fo a press cloth these are teflon covered material that is put over the iron but allows the steam to come through.
Pressing Mitt: These can help the wearer press fabrics on their hand, useful for pressing rounded surfaces eg: shoulders and darts.
Hem Guide: This is handy as it makes an indent where the hem lies so that it is invisible from the right side. Only the hem crease should be pressed after this not the stitches.
Tips
I go through a lot of irons, but I do tend to buy the cheap ones in the supermarket, here are some tips that should help keep your iron in good shape for sewing projects.
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To clean residue (I keep getting caught out by transfers on cheap t-shirts) from the surface of an iron, sprinkle table salt onto a brown paper bag and set the iron heat as high as it will go. Blasting the steam while running the iron across the salt on the paper bag will help remove the residue. This works best for residue that hasn’t been on the iron for too long. You can always also just wipe the iron on a scrap piece of fabric or buy specific iron cleaners for this but the salt trick is a good one to have as a backup!
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Clean out the inside of your iron once or twice a year using distilled white vinegar with some water. Put the mix (mostly water) in the iron and put it on a high heat. Holding the iron over a sink, blast the steam until all the vinegar/water mixture has been emptied. Refill the receptacle with 1/2 cup of plain water and blast the steam until emptied again.
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Cheesecloth and muslin squares make great press cloths. A cloth table napkin can also double as a press cloth. For ‘fusing’ interlining and transfers etc It can be handy to be sure of ‘which side up’ you need the press cloth each time. You may want to cover the underside/ ironing board cover also as sometimes these things can be messy.
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Ironing-board covers with grid lines and measurement markings are available from local fabric stores and help tremendously when sewing an item that needs precision in each measuring step.
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Be sure to test the iron temperature on a scrap of fabric if you are unsure of the iron. Using an iron that is too hot can ruin fabrics.
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Remove water-soluble pen marks before pressing to avoid setting the ink. A clean, recycled roll-on deodorant bottle filled with water works well for this task. Just roll the ball of the bottle over the pen mark to saturate it with water. Allow the fabric to dry and watch the pen mark disappear.
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