Do I like Wool Pressing Mats

welcome to sewveryeasy my name is laura and i'm often asked do i like wool pressing mats well let's find the answer out i have been sewing pretty much all my life and i have been using wool to press with just as long in garment construction we use these hams a lot it helps shape sleeves they're made out of wool you can get long little tubes that are also designed for pressing in garment making they're also made with wool if you needed a different shape we would often take a piece of wool and roll it really tight to give us this round pressing shape and we used it as a pressing bar so in the sewing industry for years i have been using wool in the sewing community we now can get wool pressing mats we can get them all different sizes you can also get them different thicknesses will pressing mats retain heat and they help prevent fabric from moving when i put down a quilt block smooth it out with my hand when i go to press it even if i'm ironing it there's a less chance of this block moving the heat of the iron can stretch fabric because it relaxes the fibers so with that heat and that ironing we can actually press and distort our shapes so you'll notice sometimes if you're pressing or ironing really hard we've taken this and we have changed that straight line and we've curved it that's because of the heat of the iron and the force that we have used the wool pressing mat helps prevent that because it holds onto that fabric we're less likely to stretch it and because the wool does retain the heat it helps press from both sides so even though i will be pressing from the top the heat does penetrate into the wool so i'm giving a little bit of a press from the other side i do like the pressing mat to be the half inch mat i do want something that has some weight to it wool pressing mats of course are made out of wool so wool does contain lanolin and that lanolin is very gentle on our fabric and it's very gentle on our hands i spend a lot of time ironing and having this beautiful surface is really nice on my hands having this also a half inch thick means we're able to pin on it and there are times that we do need to pin things to block them blocking is more common in knitting and crocheting because after that garment has been done we pin it steam it and block it so the wool mats work well even for the knitting and the crocheting the one disadvantage of a wool mat is sometimes the smell because this is a raw wool it still has the lanolin in it and you often will find little flecks in it that raw wool is really what makes the mat so nice but it sometimes will have a bit of a smell to it over time that smell does go away but if you find it's a very strong smell you can spray it with a little bit of a febreze or you can put a little bit of water in fabric softener in a spray bottle and spray that surface the fabric softener is okay on the wool and it will just help that wool smell nice you can also wash these now it's not something you're going to throw in the wash machine but you can take a wet cloth and wash them so if you do not like the smell you can wash them just get a soap that you would use to wash delicates a bowl of water with some soap and just wash that mat down on both sides and let it dry and knowing that we can wash these means that over time if you use a lot of starch you can wash these and wash that starch off i have two wool pressing mats the smaller one is a great one to bring beside your machine it will often fit on top of a tv tray so we can bring this to the couch if we need to pin things on or we want to do a little bit of pressing beside the sewing machine they also fit on these great folding wooden tables so i often have this sitting beside my sewing machine and i can put this mat right on top this large mat is 24 inches by 48 inches the smaller mat is 12 by 18 inches and they are both half inch thicknesses and the mats that i do have are from mountain mist and this is the same company that makes the quilt batting the other question i get concerning these wool mats will the heat ruin the surface that the mat is sitting on the mat itself can hold a lot of heat and a lot of moisture before it can disturb that surface do not put these wool mats over top of your cutting mats and iron it will warp them i would also not put them on top of a fine wood furniture the moisture and the heat can warp and ruin furniture however on these melamine surfaces it really does hold up well i do a lot of pressing and i do end up with a very very hot surface so underneath my mat i use it as storage i have the labels that i'm going to put on a quilt underneath and i also keep my teflon pressing sheets underneath this really helps protect my surface and it's a way of storing my sheets these are thin enough it's not going to distract from the mat though i have used these melamine surfaces on their own for a lot of pressing and it did not bother them i just wouldn't want to take a chance and use a good wood and definitely not a cutting mat i have used this wood tray with this cutting mat for six months and i've had no distortion at all but i just wouldn't want to take a chance if it was my good dining room set so i hope those tips have helped you out so to answer that question yes i love wool pressing mats the big ones and the small ones i love that i can bring these close to my machine pen on them transport them wherever i want and the large one i love being able to press a big surface and having it stay exactly the way i wanted it thank you for joining me today on sewveryeasy feel free to subscribe and come on back let's see what we're talking about next time in the sewing room bye for now you

Channel: SewVeryEasy

Views: 40,896

Keywords: fabric, quilting, quilt, sew, sewing, how to, advice, laura, coia, sew very easy, diy, do it yourself, Do It Yourself (Website Category), Sewing Machine (Product Category), tips, trick, tutorial, free, craft, crafts, crafting, learn, education, educational, teach, teaching, machine, cutting tools, rotary cutter, cutting mat, fabric sissors, Bernina, machines, thread

Id: 5-5v51AtwBQ

Length: 8min 0sec (480 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021