I use fusible web by the bolt and sometimes get careless in the middle of the night. For fast, safe, non-scratching, low-chemical, no-fail removal of the glue from an iron, turn the iron on to a medium-low heat setting and rub the soleplate with a scrunched up dryer sheet, a used one works just fine. Don't forget to check the steam vents, too. If you prefer, you can put the dryer sheet on a piece of newspaper and iron it, not press, iron.

If that doesn't work because of the spandex, I'd try Iron-Off.

Paper princess I love the practical way you think girl! Made me laugh

Have you tried peeling the stuck fabric off the iron? I have had good luck doing that. You might try heating the iron just a little--you have to be able to touch it without burning yourself. I have done this many times and sometimes just kept on using the iron and the sticky just wore off. It doesn't really matter what you do, the iron is no good like it is.
Sue

I have had a couple of "iron incidents" and because of this I always buy an iron with a shiny sole plate so I don't know about the Mr Clean eraser tip for you. I have used this and it worked wonderfully for me. All the gunk from starching and ironing came off.

The other thing I did to get plastic off my iron was to freeze it. I didn't have room in my freezer so I sat it on a bed of ice cubes. This freezes the plastic and gets it brittle so you can peel it off - chip it off. I got my iron clean with this and I had a lot of plastic on it. Got the tip off the internet and it worked. You might try it with yours. I had tried getting the iron hot and rubbing it back and forth and it only made it worse.

Oh dear, I hate those sneaky house invader people! Good luck with your iron.

I'm glad i kept my old iron. Gonna remember to use it for fusibles and not my good one. Good luck with saving your iron. Sure hope that stuff comes off.

I would do as previous post said, heat up the iron and try to get as much of the junk off when the iron is hot. It happened to me when making a T-shirt quilt. You might try the Mr Clean. That type of sponge has saved my bacon most then once. I own a Rowenta Soleplate Cleaning Kit and it seems to always get the little bit of crude from using Heat n Bond.

I keep a tube of iron-off handy. It works well and use Qtips to get the melted matter from the vents.

I can't help with the clean up. I would use just a cooler iron when ironing on tee shirts.