Still use a clothesline today and my hubby really needs to brush up on the rules, LOL. Well at least for the four loads a year he hangs out.

my mother followed all those rules. monday = wash day, tuesday = iron day, wed thru fri = clean house day, sat = bake 2 pies, wash & roll hair - go to town. i followed all the rules except they were all done on sat b/c i worked & that's the only day i had. washed, dried, ironed all on sat. good ole days? i think not!

LOL I grew up next to a hog farm, so you could only linedry if the wind was blowing the other way!

however on good days rules 1-8 minus 6 (never hung clothes when it was cold outside) were followed!

Boy that brings back memories.

oh my gosh!!!!!!!!!!! i had almost forgotten the RULES! yes i had to follow all of them. thanks for the reminder!!
all those diapers freeze before you could hang them. i had a clothes line up until the early eighties. wish i had one now

I remember my mom had a cute little apron to keep the clothespins in while she was hanging wash. always hated when in winter we had to hang them all up down in the basement. And It was no rec-room!!!

These rules were not printed in stone, but all of us who had to hang wet clothes knew the rules.
My dad and I did most of the washing for a family of 7 kids and mom and dad. He always told me he would hang the sheets and towels if I would hang the wash cloths and little girl undies. Said his hands were too big to get hold of them.
Fond memories.

Two years ago on my 70th Birthday I bought clothesline rope and made myself a clothesline. That night I crawled between those line dried sheets and smiled. Nothing smells better than line dried sheets. They make for a restful sleep. I've not dried my sheets in the drier sense.

OMG I did that....still do when I use my line.
Can't imagine a messy clothes line with everything jumbled and not neatly lined up. One would say that is OCD, maybe so, but still it's gotta look right on the line. And definately the sheets and towels on the outside. No exception to that rule!

At least I don't look my age. LOL

During the summer months or hurricain season in Florida (June thru November) I have to use the dryer. The humidity is so high that the clothes don't dry they sour really bad. And if you don't catch them before the rain every few hours, you're throwing them in the dryer anyway. So I am just going to save myself the aggravation and time during those months. Can't wait to open my windows and put the clothes on the line then when it cools down. The Florida weather is not really my cup of tea. I think I would rather live elsewhere.

I want to tell all the newbies on this site about buying cheap blades.I bought carpet cutting blades for my rotary cutter at Harbor Freight for $1.49 for a pair.Most hardware stores carry these round blades. They will fit your medium size blades.They do not carry smaller blades. Sure is a savings.

I used to hang gauze diapers on the line. I loved to see them flapping in the breeze. We had metal T-shaped clothes line poles that had 4 lines. When the drooped we tightened them with a wrench. The only problem was that wasps would make nests in the open ends of the poles. We can't have one now because of HOA rules. I'm tempted to anyway because we back up to a protected woodland preserve and it wouldn't be seen from the street.

We all know about the Harbor Freight blades.

I am the one who got all the ladies here into a frenzy and are now stalking Harbor Freight's nationwide.......LOL

I never thought to check the local hardware store. I will have to remember that in about 2 yrs when my supply starts to run low.

In Bend Oregon there is a well to do community up on a place called Awbrey Butte. It suppose to hale itself as a "green community" and they forbid outdoor clotheslines. One lady up there was fined for hanging clothes outdoors. She said she was tired of hanging stuff in the garage cause her clothes would smell like her lawnmower.
Now this so called "green community" is made up of houses at least 3,000 sq. ft. Now, think about the energy it takes to heat and cool those places. Doesn't sound to green to me.

The above mentioned lady since has sold her house and moved to a more clothesline friendly neighborhood.

I remember clotheslines and the rules very well. We lived in San Francisco in a 3rd floor walk-up. The 3 clothes lines were on the pulleys that extended over the back yard. I'll never forget the sinking feeling when the line got jammed and my favorite dress plus the rest of the load was stuck. There was no way to reach them. It took my DH, me and a lot of prayer about an hour to get them unstuck.
I love my dryer and my one story house!

Talking of clothesline, I remember the bags with different patterns to hide the clothespins, running to help a neighbour to take clothes off the line when a sudden rain shower would hit and be rewarded with a nickel. Do you carry the tradition to hang a rosary on the clothesline to have sunshine on your wedding day

I remember those rules. Taught to me by my dear grandmother - and in Spanish! God bless her.

Good memories. The clothes smelled so fresh and not like added softner from the dryer. Yes, my mom had those same ideas. Not sure she called them rules, but we did it her way. I have been wanting a clothes line. They are good for so many things even if you don't use them on a regualr basis. Sheets are so clean and crisp. Makes for a good nights sleep.

I still hang my clothes outside on the clothes line. It gives me exercise and I enjoy doing it. I even hang on lines in basement in the winter. I do own a dryer but it keeps the utility bills lower.My clothes smell so great all the time.

I sold my Nana's pants stretchers to an antique dealer a couple of years ago...I think she gave me $10 for them. They had been hanging on the basement wall by the furnace for decades.

That is sooooo true.

Here in Australia we still hang our washing on a line. We have the Hills hoist and I have a multi line fold up on the back verandah. I only use the dryer in wet weather.

I remember wash day was quite a ritual when I was a child. Coppers were the go and the clothes, sheets etc were boilded in the copper, then rinced in the blue water and mostly wrung by hand and pegged on the clothes line. My mother got her first wringer washing machine in the late 1950's. My Mum is now 84 and wasing day is still very much the ritual of a Monday, of course. I certainly don't follow all the washing rules of long ago but I still wipe the line and always hang whites with white and tops by the bottoms and bottoms by the tops.

My Dad had an engineering works and I remember he made my Mum her first rotary hoist, very similar to the hills hoist.

this is so funny cause most of these I do,do. Just make sense,right!!

OH YES I REMEMBER THOSE DAYS IN WV AN IN THE WINTER TIME I HAVE HAD NY HANDS FREEZE TO THE LINE

Kinda like sticking your tongue to a light pole LOL

I have really enjoyed reading all the responses. I grew up in the forty's and fifty's so we had a wringer washer with the wash tubs for the rinsing. I was missing my cloths lines so my 41yr. old son and his wife had some made for her and I for Mother's Day and then drove 3 hours to put them in for me. They should out live me and all my grandchildren and even my great granddaughter. They are made of galvanized pipe painted black and cemented in about 3ft. I just love them.
And yes I do follow all the cloths line rules. I also remember the pant stretchers that my mom used for my dads pants. After they were dry I would have to iron the tops. Oh what a good time it was.

I do remember most of those rules! We hung outside up until winter and then we hung in the basement and attic!

I think my Mother wrote those rules! If she didn't like the way we (her daughters) hung the laundry she would go back and redo it. Every thing had to be in order.

My very first sewing project was an apron that held the clothespins. Does that date me???HA

Have a line that pulls out from the house to the fence. Where I live we have rules that nothing can be seen above the fence. Good thing we are short people. I love to hang the clothes out and Husband helps me with it. Unmentionables stay in the house however. Wouldn't want one of those to fly up over the fence with a gust of wind!

I never minded hanging out clothes it was using the three wringer washers and hauling the hot water to wash stepdads rig clothes that always got to me youhad to time everything just right or start all over to get all the grease, oil and diesel out of the clothes.

thanks for the trip down memory lane.....I remember those rules. I also love the smell of sheets fresh off the line. Wish I had a place to put a line up, I'd still use it.

That sure brought back many memories. Thought my mom was the only one who did this routine. Glad for modern time dryers.

Me Too!!! :lol:

oh what memories, grew up hanging laundry on clothes line, my mom didn't get a dryer till probably in the 70's, I left home after graduating in 1960. I have a pair of the pant stretchers hanging in my laundry room now. A Martha White bluing bottle and 2 sprinkler tops, one on an old Pepsi bottle, rub boards, and some lye soap. several wooden long clothes pins. Lots of memories. Luv the old stuff. we called it the clothesline pole.Oh and did those sheets smell wonderful....

I do remember them. When I lived in England, my now ex was in USAF and when I would bring in my clothes when dried, if weather was cool, there would be cold dust marks on them. Loved it in UK.

Living in Sr. housing, who would think of having a clothesline available? Well, we do. It took a lot of urging with management, but we got it. Gets used a lot when weather permits. Consider the fact that all of us here grew up when dryers were unheard of. Oh, yes, the smell of line dried sheets---um-m-m.

Oh, how well I remember clothes lines!! I didn't realize there were "rules" but I seem to have done pretty well. All except the folding. I did that later. And for lack of space, I had to hang in multiples. I had two in diapers (no Pampers!). So washcloths, diapers, and underwear were hung two at a time.

They were called clothes props, at least around here!

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.