As a child, one of the things that I loved most was watching my Mema "press" clothing, fabric, sheets, linens, basically everything. She had a long clothes line in the back yard (which is a whole different blog topic in and of itself), and when the laundry was dry, she would remove the clothes pins , drop each item one-by-one into the basket, and return inside to the iron board to iron the things that needed pressing.
My mom still has my Mema's iron board which is made of heavy steel and would probably break your toe if you dropped it on it. I used to love the sound it made, squeaks and all when you opened it. OK, yes, I am a little weird to love everything about ironing, but I do and I am not a bit ashamed of it. When Mema would iron, she would give me a real black iron, you know the kind they used to heat over the fire instead of using electricity. It was of course a cold iron, but I would pretend that it was hot and iron all of my dolls' clothes with it on my Mema's sleeve ironing board. Magically, all those "wrinkled" doll clothes would be perfectly pressed after I finished with them.
My love for ironing continues to this day. Again, I admit, it is not the normal past time that people usually want to spend their time doing. But I DO LOVE it. My most prized wedding gift was a Rowenta Professional Steam Iron. I have owned five Rowentas including a travel one. They are worth their weight in gold and I promise, if you get one, you will never settle for any other type of iron. Make sure you purchase the "professional" Rowenta with the stainless steel sole plate. It is the BEST. The only reason I have owned 5 total is because I have one for upstairs, one for downstairs, one for my business, the travel iron and the original accidentally got broken when we moved from Austin to Knoxville.
As you can see from the pictures dispersed throughout this post, Miss Sophie is continuing the tradition of ironing her own doll's clothing. There is just nothing like a nicely pressed pair of pants, or a crisp collar on a shirt. Ironing is something that makes my heart sing!
My mom still has my Mema's iron board which is made of heavy steel and would probably break your toe if you dropped it on it. I used to love the sound it made, squeaks and all when you opened it. OK, yes, I am a little weird to love everything about ironing, but I do and I am not a bit ashamed of it. When Mema would iron, she would give me a real black iron, you know the kind they used to heat over the fire instead of using electricity. It was of course a cold iron, but I would pretend that it was hot and iron all of my dolls' clothes with it on my Mema's sleeve ironing board. Magically, all those "wrinkled" doll clothes would be perfectly pressed after I finished with them.
My love for ironing continues to this day. Again, I admit, it is not the normal past time that people usually want to spend their time doing. But I DO LOVE it. My most prized wedding gift was a Rowenta Professional Steam Iron. I have owned five Rowentas including a travel one. They are worth their weight in gold and I promise, if you get one, you will never settle for any other type of iron. Make sure you purchase the "professional" Rowenta with the stainless steel sole plate. It is the BEST. The only reason I have owned 5 total is because I have one for upstairs, one for downstairs, one for my business, the travel iron and the original accidentally got broken when we moved from Austin to Knoxville.
As you can see from the pictures dispersed throughout this post, Miss Sophie is continuing the tradition of ironing her own doll's clothing. There is just nothing like a nicely pressed pair of pants, or a crisp collar on a shirt. Ironing is something that makes my heart sing!
8 comments:
Haha! Amy this is why I love you! (and why we could not possibly be more different personality types :)) I would never put 'love' and 'ironing' in the same sentence! Can I send my children to you for training in the domestic arts? Please?!
But of course, Miss Sarah! I will be more than happy to teach Princess Cate and Sir Max how to iron. LOL! We need to get together SOON!
Oh my....ironing makes me want to vomit at times! Sophie is your mini-me. Now will you please send her 4 hours over the mountain to Charlotte to help me out?! So cute!
Thanks for your offer of ironing lessons, Amy! I was thinking of something a little more comprehensive, though, like a a 6 week intensive domestic arts boot camp of sorts that includes ironing, cooking, cleaning, sewing. You know - custom aprons would be in order. You could start each day with iron lifts followed by deep knee bends on the shower cleaning circuit ... my kids need major help ;D
This post reminded me of a short story that I remember from college: "I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen ... not that it has much really to do with ironing, but an excellent read!
p.s. Call me!
Oh my goodness! Both of you Sarah's have me laughing! I love you both!
Amy had to iron the girls clothes to go sledding in the snow today, meanwhile I just pulled some wrinkly dirty clothes out of the hamper to roll around in the snow.
That is so cute. I remember as kids we ironed everything. The only thing I like about ironing is the smell of fresh ironed clothes. Of course I like the look and of course I try to buy things that are unironable... That is awesome of you to love ironing Amy, the tradition goes on. That is so cute of Sophie doing her ironing. I often thought if I were a Sociologist doing volunteer work I would like to teach people the correct way to iron. Crazy of me... but there is an art to ironing and an art to other homemaking skills, as our Mama (Memaw) taught us back in our years as girls.
I love this post (makes me miss my grandmother though).
I iron almost every day. I used to iron knit shirts and sheets too but with three kids + me and my husband's clothes, I have to draw the line somewhere!
I actually think I'm a bit of a snob about it...
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