I like auto shut-off as well. My sewing area is in the archway between the guest bedroom and what would have been a trunk room in my 100 year old house. My ironing station is a board on top of a small table placed at right angles to the left side of my sewing cabinet--very convenient, since I just have to swivel my chair to press seams. Buuuut, Bubba, my dog, likes to lay on the guest bed while I work. Sometimes Bubba likes to come visit me at the sewing machine which he does by squeezing his 80 pound self in between my sewing cabinet and my chair-- he's never yet knocked himself or me (in my rolling chair) into the iron, but I feel better knowing that it has auto shut-off.
Rob