In years gone by, mothers taught their daughters how to iron. That tradition has fallen by the wayside and people (men and women alike) have to basically learn how to use cloth irons, clothes irons or steam irons themselves. Whether you want to learn how to iron curtains, sheets, pillow cases or clothing, the basic principle stays the same: Place the object to be ironed on a flat surface (normally an ironing board), heat up the cloth iron and apply the hot iron to the area of the cloth that needs to be smoothed out. In practise however, the concept is not always that easy to apply. Factors that will influence exactly what you do include the type of material and the type of garment that you want to iron.
The Ironing Board
Although any flat surface can be used to iron, ironing boards have be especially designed to make the task easier. The height, shape and material covering the board all have a very specific function. In an emergency, feel free to use any flat surface, but if you are going to be ironing regularly, do yourself a favor and buy a decent ironing board.
Type Of Material
Before beginning to figure out how to iron any item, first make sure that the material can actually be ironed. Most clothes labels will indicate whether it can be ironed or not, and if it can, a temperature setting will be specified. The instruction booklet of your cloth iron should also explain the settings on your iron and the types of materials these should be used for. Silk and polyestor should be handled with extreme care if you want to iron these, as they could easily be ruined by heat.
Type Of Item
The easiest item to iron is a straight pieve of cloth. Pillow cases and sheets are prime examples. For a first attempt, I woul recommend that you practise on a pillow case. Once you have the basics sorted, progress to a sheet. The size of the sheet will make it more tricky, but simple logic will ensure a good result - start on one side of the sheet, and as you move the sheet to get to the areas that still need to be ironed, take care to hang or fold the ironed prt in such a way that it does not wrinkle again. You can even iron portions of a sheet double.
Shirts, pants and skirts offer a bit more of a challenge, mainly due to their shape. With a shirt, I always do the cuffs and sleeves first, as these can hang off the ironing board while I am busy with the collar and the body of the shirt. Both the collar and cuffs should be opened and laid down flat when ironing - this makes it easier and allows you to get it done properly.
Pants should be pressed rather than ironed. Press the iron on the areas to be smoothed applying steam at the same time, rather than moving the iron over the garment. Skirts are ironed normally simply by starting at the top and ending at the bottom. The style and shape of some skirt do however make it easier to iron them the other way around, starting at the bottom.
One final tip: the smoothness of the material just ironed actually sets in while the article is cooling down. Allow all ironed articles to cool down properly before folding or wearing, as doing this while the article is still warm will result in new wrinkles and folds.
Best Steam Irons
- SteamFast SF-435W Compact Fabric Steamer
- Black and Decker Digital Iron D2030
- T-Fal FV4379003 Ultraglide Easycord Iron
- Steamfast SF-717 home and away mini steam iron
- Rowenta DW8080
- Panasonic NI-S300TR 1200 watt steam iron
- Panasonic NI-C78SR Steam/Dry Iron
- Smartek Steam Iron
- Black and Decker F67E
- SteamFast SF-407
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