Angels Sewing and Quilting Demo Laura Heine Steam-A-Seam 2

Learn with Carol how to Steam-A-Seam 2 onto your fabric for a Laura Heine class. Carol and Laurie are certified to be Laura Heine teachers, and they discuss how using the correct Steam-A-Seam is important.

I’m going to bring you a demo on how to put Steam-A-Seam 2 onto your fabric for a Laura Heine class. Laurie and I went out to Billings about a month ago and we got certified to be a Laura Heine teacher. The one big thing that we learned was using the correct Steam-A-Seam. I have Steam-A-Seam in the store and we were using the wrong ones. You want a Steam-A-Seam 2 and you don’t want it to say light, which is what we had in the store. We do still have some light in the store but when you are doing a Laura Heine collage pattern, you definitely want to use the one that does not say light. What light means, is that it is not permanent, it’s only temporary. The Steam-A-Seam 2 is permanent. Once you steam that, it’s not going anywhere. We want to start with Steam-A-Seam-2. I’ve been doing a lot of these at home and I really like the 12 inch width. I can sit at my sewing table and I’m able to just do this. I’m going to change the camera view so you can see down on my Steam-A-Seam and how we’re going to do this. When you pull it out of the box, it has the paper on top. You want the grid side down. On mine, it is yellow. You want that down. Then you are going to peel away. When I’m peeling it, I try to fold it because the inside part of the paper is sticky. At first, I had it all over the place and I was getting sticky all over my hands, so I figured out a way to make it a little less messy. Let’s just pretend that these are my pieces. I picked small ones because it was easier to show in a demo but it is the same principle with the larger pieces. You want to butt it right up. They don’t need to have spaces in between and you don’t want them to overlap, just place them right next to each other. I am going to get a couple more pieces of material. See how over here I do have some of the edges right here? We are going to rotary cut that off. Here is a larger example piece. If you don’t put it on perfectly straight and it does overlap, it’s really not a big deal. I just say that because you don’t want to always overlap them because then you would be wasting some of your Steam-A-Seam. When you’re doing one of the big collages and you have your material, you will fill it all the way up. You could probably fit a couple more small ones. Now, what we’re going to do is we’re going to cut this. I’m using my rotary cutter. I just want to get it away from the box. For demo purposes, let’s pretend there are a couple more pieces of material in this blank space. Now, we’re going to cut away all of the space. I’m trying to save the extra Steam-A-Seam. The whole idea right now is to cut your pieces and not have any stickiness left. I cut this first and I cut it away like this. Actually, I’m going to get my ruler. I’m really close and you don’t want to see any of the sticky on your material. I’m barely cutting even a little sliver off. I’m going to use my ruler to cut off the little slivers on all four sides. I do it on all four sides. You want to end with all of the pieces like this. It doesn’t really matter because you can press them when they are all together on here, just make sure you remember to use a pressing sheet so that you don’t ruin your iron or your surfaces. Which is why you went around and took off all the stickiness. And I still use this just to protect my iron. When you put this on, keep it on for a good 30 seconds or so. You’re going to know when it's ready because when you go to peel it off, which we aren’t going to do right now because it is hot and you don’t want to do it when it is hot. As you take out your Steam-A-Seam, you’re going to out all of your pieces onto your Steam-A-Seam and you can put a pressing sheet over it and press it then, just doing one side and then the other side. The pressing sheet is important to protect your iron and then you can cut them all out. When you cut them, with a rotary cutter, I would go around and cut so that there is no stickiness showing at all. This one is done. When you go to peel it, you’re going to peel it. When it peels, as you start to peel, you want to make sure that the stickiness is now transferred to your material and is no longer on the paper. If you’re having a hard time peeling it, it’s usually because it needs another little bit with the iron. You can just have the iron sit on it for a little bit and then you’ll be fine. The great thing about Steam-A-Seam-2 is that it’s repositionable, which if you’re doing a Laura Heine pattern, is really important because if you’re sitting there and you’re putting something somewhere and then you want to move it, they are repositionable. You can take them up and move them. Only when you’re really sure that this is it, will you steam it. That is what will make the Steam-A-Seam permanent.