Originally Posted by slk350
I remember my mom with her first washing machine, an old wringer type.She would wash the clothes, hang them on the clothes line to dry...take them in (sometimes frozen), sprinkle them with water, roll them in bath towels, put them in the refrig for a day or so, then take them out and iron them !!! CRAZY ??? I never understand it.
No, it wasn't crazy! It was exactly the perfect way to do it! The reason she sprinkled them with water was to "dampen" then for ironing (there was no sense in ironing dry clothes - you'd just iron the wrinkles in), they were rolled and left to sit so the water would naturally distribute throughout the shirt or pillowcase or whatever so that it was evenly damp and would iron out well. We always rolled them, but never used the bath towels. We never refrigerated them either, but that was because our "schedule" was probably different from your mom's. She refrigerated them so they didn't get moldy sitting around for a couple days before she was ready to iron. We washed on Monday and ironed on Tuesday. So we dampened them early on Tuesday morning, layered them in a laundry basket, covered them with a cloth or towel and a few hours later they were ready. Dampening was REALLY important if an item was starched - you could NEVER iron it correctly if it wasn't dampened first.
See, there WAS a method to our madness!
I guess steam irons now take the place of dampening, but IMO it doesn't do the job as well as the old fashioned way.