Shadow Dancer

I remember them, we lived in an apartment when I was growing up and all the women had a wash day so they could use all the clotheslines that were strung behind the building. lol

I had a clothesline until a few years ago, when the back was landscaped the clothes line had to go. :( I used to hang all my fabric for quilting out to dry, now it gets hung over the gazebo rails... lol

sewjoyce

Yep -- I remember clothes lines!! (Particularly taking off the frozen diapers and hoping they would "thaw" and finish drying before you needed them!)

Still have a clothes line in my yard. However, we also have LOTS of birds so I don't think anything would be safe...

carrieg

I have 1 line, cut to length that I put on rings and a hook on the garage and the house. I don't use it often, but DH's work clothes dry pretty fast when I do. Absolutely love the sheets dried that way!

I also use a drying rack since we heat our house with a free-standing fireplace. So those things dry really quickly.

I call it my 'solar dryer'! LOL

DA Mayer

I use mine sporadically now, used to all the time. i plan on using them more this year with the money so tight. We have several in our small town that is all they use. My husb likes his sheets stinky clean, we didn't know what else to call the smell of sheets dried on the line.

Barbm

As soon as I can I use the line outside. Have had one at every house we are in. I use a clothes rack for the skivvies so no one sees them. Have to keep an eye out though, the wind likes to blow the rack over. When I run out of room on the line I throw the towels over the deck railing.

I prefer my bedsheets smelling fresh this way and don't mind the roughness of the towels, even if they crunch as you fold them. It's fun folding jeans, making the boards crack and fold. Kids are not crazy about it, but I like to hang clothes on the line. I also like doing laundry, it was my job as a kid on Sat. and Sun.- I would do 8 or 9 loads before the towels and sheets, there are 9 kids so we had 4 lines.

I hate using the dryer and cringe when the kids throw theirs in it. I also use cold water for my laundry. I try to save $.

Oh- I hang my shirts on plastic hangers outside (be sure to secure the hanger with a clothespin- the wind loves to send them flying). No pinch marks on the bottom of them.

MsSage

Fl has passed a law stating no HOA can fine a homeowne for a cloths line. I am sure other states will join in.
That is why I will NEVER live in a neighborhood with a HOA. Its MY property and I can do what I want.

All of my houses have had lines and they were used. personal items always dryed using the wooden one inside makes your bras last longer. Now I dont have a line and I miss it so much I love the crispness of towels and the smell of sheets and quilts.
As for ironing uuuuggg I HATE it. I only do fabric now. I LOVE that LOL go figure.

mommaB

If I didn't have so many birds, I would still hangout :shock: :shock: My brother is 18 years older than I and we have a picture somewhere of him and all his buddies hanging diapers on the line!! It was a requirement before he could go to play basketball with the guys, they helped so he could go sooner!!! ( He ended up with 5 kids of his own, so the practice went to good use!!) We hung clothes in the basement in the winter, I remember when my oldest sister (even older than my brother!!) bought my mom a dryer, about 1970!!!...sheets and jeans still hung because mom didn't want to overwork the dryer and we still had the wringer washer!!

I was carted in and out of the house and up and down the stairs in the laundry basket on top of clothes, my kids were too! And now the grandbaby..what great memories :D :D :D

Rhonda

It was my job to hang the laundy when I was growing up. We would go down to my grandma's house and use her wringer washer in the basement.It was my job to pull the clothes through the wringer making sure I didn't catchmy fingers in the wringer-that hurt!
Then we took the wet clothes home and hung them out. Shirts together socks together in one place etc. Always use one clothespin to hold where two pieces connected!

But my fondest memories of the clothesline are when we made a tent out of a blanket over the clotheslines! We weighted the edges down with bricks or the wind would whip the blankets off the line! We had a great time in those tents!

In the years after I have used the clothesline to clip a dog leash to to give the dog a controlled place to play. The leash will slide along the clothesline giveing the dog a larger area to move in but he or she is still safe!

One Mother's day when I was about 10 my lab Pudder treed a coon up the clothesline pole! What a racket!! My dad went out an shot it because it was probably rabid and he didn't want to take a chance on it.

My youngest BIL Doug(10 at the time) had a shepherd that was devoted to him. His older brother Dale(16 at the time)was picking on him so he turned and said "Sic em Queenie!" and she did right up the clothesline pole!!! She wasn't going to let him down anytime soon!! She sat there snarling (she would not have bit him!) but Dale didn't want to take any chances! So he sat up there for an hour yelling for Doug to call off the dog!! Which he eventually did!
The family got a big laugh out of this because Dale is a big joker and always picking on someone!

Courtepointe

I use my clothesline all the time! In fact, hanging clothes on the line is my favourite household "chore". I just love having my 100 foot line filled with clothes, as I sit reading in a lawnchair with a glass of wine. I can smell, see, and hear the clothes dry, and I can think to myself "I sure did get a lot of work done today!" And I don't hide my undies - the 80 + man next door gets his little thrill, or so he says. When I see him working in his garden, I always think that I should hang out all of my most naughty items, to fill the line and see if he says anything. We have had some good laughs, and he and his wife have gotten used to me hanging clothes out any day of the week. I work on Mondays!
I use it almost year-round. I really love hanging out the quilts and blankets on cold, sunny winter days to air them out. They sure smell nice, like snow, when we settle in.
My mom always wanted a nice long clothesline, but my dad always thought they looked "tacky", so he installed one of those whirly ones that spins in the wind. Well, one windy day, ideal for laundry, my mom got hit in the head by one of its bars when it spun in the wind. I will never forget her tearing that thing out of the ground, and bending it into a ball. She was in a blind rage, which I almost never saw. She even muttered swear words! She said to me "Wait until your father gets home." It was shortly after that that she got a proper clothesline.
I can't imagine not having a line.

butterflywing

k - i don't hide my undies either. that proves to my neighbors that i wear 'em.

upnorth - yes, brighter is better. when i use the dryer in the winter, the sheets get yellow-ish. normally, the sun bleaches that out.