Help with the Ironing

My grandma loves to iron and sometimes I just don't understand why. However, there must be something about it that works for her. Ironing doesn't have to be a favorite pastime of yours, but it also doesn't have to be drudge work. If you can keep in mind a few simple guidelines for your ironing you should be able to take out much of the frustration and enjoy your wrinkle free, crisp clothes!

Whenever you cook you preheat the oven and it's the same thing with ironing; whenever you iron you should preheat the iron. Turn it on a few minutes before you actually start ironing and then it will be ready to go when you're ready to go. Ironing on a merely warm iron won't do anything for your clothes and you'll probably have to start over anyway. Also make sure you have the iron on the right heat setting for your clothes. It would be a huge disappointment to accidentally melt your clothes because you didn't take note of the heat setting!

You want to prevent stretching when ironing. You are less likely to stretch your garments if you iron them with lengthwise strokes. To take out wrinkles move the iron slowly across the garment and slowly wiggle it back and forth to make sure you're ironing it the most effectively. With most delicate items you should definitely take your time and make sure you're really ironing it, but with more casual or cotton items, pressing it (ironing with simple, quick strokes) usually will suffice.

Also be mindful of the other materials on your clothing. For instance a lot of clothing today has stamped on images which may look cool, but could ruin your shirt and your iron if you iron directly onto them. The key to avoiding ironing disasters like that is to have a spare piece of thin fabric by your iron and use that as a buffer between the stamped image and the iron. If you don't have a pressing cloth, you can just avoid the stamped image and iron that section of the shirt from the back side.

Ironing—when you have the right know how—can be mindless work that still makes you productive. You don't have to love it or even fully enjoy it, but it doesn't have to be miserable. And one last tip to keep in mind is to put on a movie or a favorite TV show while you iron—a good rerun of Gilmore Girls can do wonders for your attention span!