I will be the first person to tell you that taking the time out to iron your fabric before you do anything can be time consuming and usually not the most enjoyable task. I will also be honest to tell you that I don't do this 100% of the time because it all depends on the fabric.
But here are a few reasons why it's a good idea to iron before you begin! (I remind myself about these reasons all the time!)
- If you have fabric with a lot of wrinkles in it, your measurements are going to be slightly off. It might not be a huge deal if you're leaving yourself extra room for your inseams. But if you're sticking with only leaving yourself with minimal inseams, then ironing will be a good idea. That way you won't have to worry about being off!
- So, take your fabric and gently stretch it, if the wrinkles really stretch out you need to iron before hand. Otherwise you're going to make wasting fabric and your cuts and measurements won't be exact as you want them to be!
- Make sure you're aware of your ironing settings. Just like your ironing different types of clothes, you want to make sure your iron settings are just right for your fabric. It's smart to know what type of fabric you're using.
- If you're pleating, you're going to want your fabric to be completely wrinkle free so that you can get even pleats. You also might want to press your pleats before you sew, it'll help with sewing over the pleats and it will help make them look even more fabulous.
- Be sure you have no pins in your fabric when you're ironing, nobody wants to ruin your fabric or the pins. If you do have pins in your fabric, be sure to have your iron on a super low setting to ensure that the pins won't melt.
When your product is all finished, you're going to notice that your seams and edges will look much more sharp. Everything will look much more polished!
Even if you decide your fabric isn't wrinkled enough to iron before you begin, just take a few minutes when you're done to iron or steam it to make it look sharp and clean cut.
If I don't take the time out to iron in the beginning I always take a few minutes to do it at the end. Start practicing your ironing skills to make everything of yours shine a little more, just like you!
