Spin-off on Wash Day Growing Up---Ironing Shirts!
 

My daughter is studying to be a nurse practitioner. Tomorrow she starts clinicals and has to wear a lab coat. She asked me to iron it because she said she had no clue how to do it. (I did teach this girl, 34, to iron!). The fabric was very heavy cotton, almost like khaki or twill. It reminded me of ironing my dad's shirts. When I was about 10 he decided my sister and I needed to learn how to starch and iron his white shirts. So my mom washed them in the wringer washer, put them in the starch bucket, rolled them up and put them in the refrigerator. Then after a couple of days we used the sprinkler bottle, a soda bottle with a sprinkler top. We would then dampen the shirt and iron it. They were hard to iron, getting all the wrinkles out, took forever! and my dad inspected them to make sure they were done right.

All I can say is thank goodness for modern clothes fabrics that come out if the dryer ready to wear. My ironing is saved for quilt fabric now.:)

I turned on my iron for the first time in months today!
Yep, ironed quilt fabric.

I still iron my hubby cotton dress shirts.

I used to iron bedsheets and pillow cases when we lived at the beach. We often had guests so I pretended it was a bed and breakfast and made everything look special, even changed their sheets every three days. I enjoyed it then even though I was working full time. Haven't done that in years, although I do make sure when company comes they have clean sheets, although a little wrinkled. Quilting fabric and table cloths are the only things that get ironed here now.

I remember my Mom washing in a wringer machine, then hanging the clothes on the clothes line and they froze solid in the winter, then she took them in , sprinkled them with water, rolled them in a towel and put them in the frig. Then ironing them in a few days...CRAZY !!

Had to iron dads work shirts also...start with the collar...then the shoulders, then the front buttonholes, then the button area, followed by sleeves....don't forget those cuffs, then front, working around to the back, then finish up on the other front side...now...hope it passes inspection!! LOL...those were the days!!!

when i was a newlywed, we were college students and he worked nights. we had no tv. so for 'entertainment', i used to iron his t-shirts! LOL

When we first got married I ironed my husband's dress shirts. Then while at a party with his co-workers he made the comment that he didn't like the way I ironed his shirts. (He never said anything to me privately.) I HATE ironing anyway. I'm a redhead with a temper. Soooo for the last 42 years he has gotten to iron his own shirts.

My mom had one of those big rolling press irons like they have at the dry cleaners and use to iron everything with it...especially the sheets. She would pull up a chair and sit there for hours pressing all of us kids bed sheets every week. What a dedicated mom she was. And she had Hodgkins Disease while she did this!