Open vs. closed seams

I found an e-mail Carolyn sent me ages ago that I meant to use as a jumping-off point for an entry - and I am, just a couple of months late! (Typical.) It was answers to a survey that somebody had sent her, I guess, and one of the things it talked about was open vs. closed seams. Here's what "the funquilts guy" (Bill Kerr?) told her on the subject:

his arguments are that 1) pressed open, the seam wears unevenly (the bulge wears out faster), 2) it's not as precise in piecing (8 pointed stars for example) -- points are easier to match amd 4) more even to quilt (no bulges to quilt over)

I'm a recent convert to open seams. It wasn't the Funquilts people who converted me, though, it was some speaker at our quilt guild months ago - I've forgotten who it was, exactly. It took me a while to get around to changing my pressing habits - which is how come I forgot who it was who talked about it in their lecture, in the interim - and I don't press all my seams open, still, but I have been doing it with the majority of them. It's the way everything lays nice and flat that has kept me doing it. And it really does help a lot when you have a bunch of seams coming together, too.

I persuaded Karen to go with open seams when we were assembling the Ohio Star, and we both thought that turned out really well. (Of course, I was especially persuasive there since I was the one doing most of the ironing!)

You can't really press the seams open when you're paper-piecing, of course - and the other time I haven't been using it is for something like 9-patches where it's easier to match the seams up if you alternate. I like being able to go by feel there, and you can't do that with open seams. So I've been doing a good many things partly open and partly closed. (The leaf quilt, for example - the blocks themselves aren't pressed open, being paper-pieced, but the seams between the blocks are.)