Hi, seems there are lots of tips and tricks to be found online. Just wondering if anyone has a favorite they'd like to share.
I just learned one from an Anita Solomon Grossman book which she uses when starching large quantities of fabric. I rarely startch, but I love this tip: partially dry your fabric and throw it in the fridge or better yet the freezer. Iron when you have time. Something about the coldness of the fabric makes it iron even smoother. Don't know why, but it sure works, especially when I don't have time to iron and don't want the fabric to get too dry or go sour.

thanks for the tip

I keep a plastic bag taped to the edge of the table to catch my thread snips and small scraps. The roller wheels on my chair seem to catch them up if I don't! Wondered why the chair didn't roll as well as before.

When I was a kid back in the 40's, my grandmother would sprinkle the clothes and roll them tightly. If she couldn't
get to the ironing the next morning she would store them in an old refrigerator in the basement until she could get around to ironing.

Love the damp fabric in the fridge tip!

This is my favorite tip: Keep a small container of water near the ironing board and place just a drop of water on intersecting seams before pressing.

Years ago when I use to iron family of fives clothes, I always sprinkled with water and refrigerated them before ironing. It does help.
Believe it or not, for many, many years people would never go anywhere withou their clothes ironed. Lost appeal to most when polyester was mixed with cotton and walla, wash n wear, no iron fabric and clothes.
One pass time I was glad to see go away.

Lotion or baby oil on legs and a big wad of nylon net , rub good to get rid of dry flaky skin.

I still love to iron and iron every week here at home and in the fifth wheel.

I don't love to iron but I still iron every week. too. My husband wears a dress shirt every day and I think they just look better lightly starched and 'flitched' off. I do remember my mother and gradnmother sprinkling clothes and then putting them in the frig!

My mother used to iron the man up the street work shirts to make extra money. We were always finding his shirts in the freezer

my grandmother uses her OLD pantyhose (the ones with runs in them) to store her onions and potaoes in. WHILE hanging them up on the carport so they could get some air and not rot as fast!

Yes, her pantyhose. :)

Funny , My mom used to sprinkle our clothes , then seperate them accourding to who was supposed to iron them. When ever we needed something to do she would tell us "You have a bag of ironing in the freezer , you should be doing". And all these years I thought my Mom was the only person who did this.
Thanks for bringing up a memory that had not been visited in many years.

When you're at the sewing machine, pin a scrap of cotton batting (I use a safety pin so I don't get poked) to the shoulder of your shirt. As you snip threads, just stick them on the batting scrap. When a lot of thread accumulates, just throw it away. Just don't forget to take it off when you're done...I once met someone at the door wearing mine! :D

My favorite tip:

Walk away from the machine or the cutting board when things start going wrong..

that is probably the hardest advice i ever learned..and the smartest!

My mom also sprinkled clothes before ironing and put them in the fridge, when she didn't have time to finish the ironing. My husband laughs at me and asked if I ever ironed anything before the minute I wanted to wear it. As for the next generation, when my granddaughter was a toddler, she pointed at my ironing board and asked me what it was for :-) Ha ha. Times they are a-changing.

You people who used to iron....do you remember ironing just the front of the shirt when you were wearing a jacket or sweater? And not ironing the tails that would be tucked in? Surely I'm not the only one to do this!

Thats neat! Thanks for the tip!!

:mrgreen: :thumbup:

Oh Yeah , In fact I will fess - up that I have actually only ironed the collar if I had a pull over sweater.

but what do you do with the food when you make room for the fabric in the freezer?

You are supposed to put food in the freezer?

Another hint, put a layer of heavy duty foil under your ironing pad and ironing is so much easier.

Mary

If you prick your finger and bleed on your fabric, grab a bundle of left over threads, spit on them and clean up the blood.
Your spit has the enzymes in necessary to clean up your own blood.
It works a treat.

LOLOLOL OMG all I can picture is all of us having NOTHING in our freezers but fabric!!!!

Sprinkle, roll it up, put it in a bag and into the freezer---brings back memories of growing up in a family of 8 before permenant press.

When I'm hand sewing I use the tips that I've cut off rubber gloves for ease in pulling the needle through.

One of my favorite things is a flat wooden tv tray (purchased at Goodwill for $5). I covered it with several layers of felt and then made a muslin fitted "sheet" for it. I take it to classes, retreats and set it up at home right by my sewing machine. My own private little ironing board! No waiting in line to press at class, no taking up tons of space at home.

Thanks

My favorite tip was the directions for making a large top for my ironing board. WOW. It is SO much easier to iron big pieces of fabric and binding strips......and I had it together in 3 hours. Easy, cheap and highly effective. My kind of tip..............

I remember when I was growing up (long time ago :roll: ) that my mom sprinkled her clothes and put them in a plastic bag an put it in the fridge - and yes, the clothes did iron much easier than when we just sprinkled them and ironed them right away.

I love to iron, too. When I don't have time to sew but want to pick up the great energy in my sewing room, I grab some fabric that I have just bought or fabric that has been stored for awhile and iron it. I feel great afterwards!

And when I'm ironing and need steam, I use a spray bottle instead. Seems to give me more control, and my wrinkles (well, the FABRIC'S wrinkles) come out so much easier and more quickly.

I use to do that with my then husbands shirts some 40 years ago. It works

I just spent a week at Quilting By The Lake in class with Anita Grossman Solomon - great class and great time. My question is "Where the heck do I find liquid starch?" I checked my two local grocery chains, Walmart and Target and can't find it anywhere. Checked on line and they want a ridiculous price for it and shipping on top of that?

Here's my tip. I use two small squares of the rubbery gridded shelf liner that we all use under the presser foot to keep it from walking away for my machine quilting. I was away at a retreat and a friend wanted to machine quilt but didn't have her quilting gloves. She cut up some of this stuff into approx. 4" squares to put under her fingers and it worked for her. When I got home, I tried this and found it so much more convenient than the gloves, which you seem to take off and put on a lot.

Where did you find the pattern for the large top?

What a great idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much.

I've been on the hunt for old fashioned powdered startch since I got her Rotary Cutting Revolution book. I know it's out there somewhere....... Good luck!

There's one here on the board and quite a few online at other sites.

http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-57168-1.htm

You have all reminded me - I remember my mother had a sprinkling bottle next to the iron, filled with water. It was teal colored, and the water came out in perfect sprinkle-sized drops for ironing. The top screwed on and off for filling. I'm going to look on ebay to see if such a thing is around anymore. I may have to make my own - salad dressing bottle and poke holes in the top? 2 liter soda bottle with holes poked in the top? Hmm, I will get creative.

Wow - just googled sprinkling bottles. (I know, I need to get busy with something else...) There are so many of them out there - plastic, glass, metal, vintage mostly. Who knew?

Here is a link to the starch
http://www.lehmans.com/store/Home_Go...erid=shopzilla

The original hint reminded me of my mother. She hated to iron--and this was back when everything we wore had to be ironed. She'd dampen the clothes, roll each item up, put it in a laundry bag, and throw it in the freezer. When she wanted something to wear from the bag, she'd take it out to thaw enough to unroll it and iron it then. Sometimes she had more laundry in the freezer than food!

For liquid starch or powdered starch, try a small-town home-owned grocery store--esp. one in a rural area. Country people still use it, so the stores stock it. I live in a small town and it's always available.

Laundries use it too, so you might check to see if a laundry in your area will sell you some. You'll probably have to take your own jar along when you go to ask.

I did this too. Working 40 to 60 hrs a week I had to iron a few pieces at a time. They seemed to iron so much better after they were frozen.