Unless we can afford to pay for an outside laundry service, the following ironing tips can greatly help make ironing a less arduous task. Just look them over quickly and see if there is something you can learn to speed up your ironing and improve the results.
Here are the best ironing tips:
Bathroom Towel Hangers
Move the fabric away from you not toward you as you iron, to avoid needless creasing.
Improve the results of your ironing by reflecting more heat. Do this by putting a sheet of aluminum foil (shiny side up) between your ironing board and the ironing board cover. Alternatively, purchase a metal coated ironing board cover.
Certain fabrics such as viscose, dark fabrics, acetates, and wash and wear fabrics in general, should be ironed on the reverse side to avoid giving a shine.
One of the best money saving ironing tips is to make your own starch solution if you need to use a spray starch on certain fabrics. Simply dissolve 1 tablespoon of cornstarch in 2 cups of water, pour the solution into a spray bottle, and voila, you have your own spray starch.
Some ironing boards come with a sleeve board attachment, ideal for shirts and blouses. If you don't have one, roll up a towel and insert it in the sleeve before ironing.
Some thick fabrics need ironing on both sides. Be sure to iron the inside first and the outside last.
Take a moment to sort your laundry before starting to iron so you have a pile of garments needing low temperature and graduate to the garments needing a higher temperature, adjusting the thermometer on your iron progressively.
Don't iron dirty clothing or stained clothing. It can make it difficult to remove the stain afterwards as it becomes set in the fabric.
After ironing shirts, put them on hangers and then fasten the top and center buttons. The shirt will then hang straight and your ironing efforts will last!
For large items like tablecloths or bedsheets, put layers of newspaper out on a large table, cover them with a sheet and place the tablecloth or bedsheet on top to iron.
When choosing an ironing board, get one with a wide end. It is easier and quicker to iron on this extra surface with less strokes and doesn't require moving the fabric so often.
For shirts, iron them when slightly damp. If they have dried to much, spray them with a little water.
Shirts can be the bane of your life, so work out a sequence that suits you and stick to it. For many, the following procedure works well although there are many individual preferences: shoulders and collar, cuffs, sleeves, right front, back, left front.
In Summary
These are some of the best ironing tips to make the job easier. However, the internet is a wonderful research tool and this is true when it comes to finding good ironing tips. In the age of video it is possible to find web sites with a variety of videos containing ironing tips for all kinds of garments. Simply type "ironing videos" into your favorite search engine and start watching. (Be sure to include the quotes for better search results)
Just taking 20 minutes or so to research ironing tips can change the whole nature of this laborious job into one you walk through quickly and efficiently!