Angie's post on ironing and fuzzylogic's follow-up got me thinking about ironing techniques. I have never been a big ironer and know very little about it. What I do know comes from the short time I spent doing some quilting, and in the quilting world, they make a distinction between "ironing" and "pressing." Ironing is when you move the iron back and forth over the material, whereas in pressing, you don't move the iron but just let it sit in one spot for a few seconds, then pick the iron up and move it to the next spot, etc. The idea behind the latter technique is that the material is less likely to get stretched out from the motion of the iron.

I realize that pressing is very important in quilting because we are dealing with simple squares of material that haven't been sewn into a block yet, so there's nothing to keep the shape intact if the iron is being moved around this way and that. On the other hand, clothing consists of fabric that is already sewn to other pieces of fabric, which creates more stability so there is less possibility of the fabric stretching out—so maybe ironing is OK.

I'm wondering what technique people on the forum use for ironing. Do you iron, or do you press?