Tuesday's Tips and Tricks: Paper Piecing and Pressing

At Wednesday's meeting Alejandrina showed us her tips for pressing (not ironing) fabric and pressing seams which was very informative and included a discussion of whether to press seams open or to the side which led to members discussing other tips, offering suggestions and asking questions.

• Alejandrina recommended a product she discovered at QuiltCon by teacher Susan Cleveland.  The Whacker  helps flatten bulky seams without constantly running to the iron.
• Love suggested using a brayer-type roller (such as used for wallpaper) for pressing seams when paper piecing, again without constantly running to the iron.  
• Penny of SewTakeAHike recommends the Curve Master seam roller in her paper piecing classes as this seam roller is beveled rather than flat so the fabric doesn't get warped while rolling.
• Mary Ellen's Best Press is a popular spray starch product used in pressing.  There are several links for making your own:  here, here, here, here and this one using Vodka!  I haven't tried any of these so can't recommend one over the other.
• Yanick recommends this ruler for marking your sewing machine for the elusive scant 1/4" seam!
• Carol Doak has a YouTube video (which would have helped me tremendously yesterday if only I had known) which shows how to remove a paper piece that was sewn on backwards.

The question of how much does a yard of fabric weigh was posed.  I found conflicting answers on the Google.  Does anyone have input on this topic?