[Sarvi]

I hate my Rowenta, despite using it with a spray bottle and thus not having any leaking/spitting issues, because it sometimes gets so scorchingly hot that even linen immediately burns. My next iron will be a cheapie.

My own stuff is never ironed because I don’t care, my child’s always is because I do care, and my husband is so handsome I’ve never noticed whether he irons or not. Anything handmade is ironed or folded, as the fabric requires, because it was made with love, my own or a friend’s.

I agree with scgoble, there can be a weird tension between being unhappy about the way that housework falls disproportionately to women, generally, and yet being pretty happy about the way work is divided in my own household, despite the fact that it falls along traditional lines. But I think it goes pretty quickly toward capital-T Theory from here, so perhaps I’ll save that for the deconstructionist sewing group, Trace This Pattern.

[EllenMCM]

It feels good to have so many feminists support me through this difficult loss.

[cybele727]

I just spit out my drink laughing.

[Jillls]

I am fine with a cheap iron. Nicer irons have lept off a wobbly ironing board to meet an early demise.

[Tamara]

Oh hilariously funny! It is good to have a chuckle at all this.

When my son was born I was listing off all the things this boy was going to learn from me, to my mil. She fairly laughed! But you know save for a few things that he is yet to learn, we are doing alright. I may yet one day make any prospective daughter in law of mine very proud!

The difference is I have unfortunately concentrated more energy on teaching him than my eldest daughter and we are only now “cramming” to get these skills learned in time for her “great escape” from the clutches of her (she thinks) overbearing mother to boarding school – well she will be learning some important life lessons there that I cannot teach her😀 and one day she will be thanking ME for that😀.

So there is the baby left to plan for and make sure that we do not have to cram in things like learning to iron just weeks before going when it is her turn.

I admit I like a nice crisply ironed shirt but if I don’t do the ironing in this house, then we all go out looking (in the words of a neighbour’s child) as though we were dragged through a hedge backward! It is far too hot to stand there and iron for hours so it is done on a strict needs basis (five minutes before we have to fly our the door to go anywhere – because I am an octopus that can do a billion jobs at one time and I have still not learned to perfect the art of delegation).

My dad who is ex army (he did 2 years national service) absolutely forbade me to iron his shirts when I was growing up, until one day, I went ahead and did them. I considered his thanking my mum for doing them as high praise because he would do his own and in a very particular way. When he found out it was me, it all of a sudden became “my job”.

So ironing in a sense is alright? I love it most when I have say 3 yards of fabric newly washed and dried to press. Or when I have just finished a garment. But other than that it is still in the I wish to avoid this task like the plague pile.

[EllenMCM]

Tamara, ironing is fine! As long as it’s not being forced on anyone, and people who need a crisply ironed shirt in a hurry are taking care of that for their own selves.

[Lightning McStitch]

I know very little about ironing, but I now know I’d happily go out for drinks with @ellenmcm ‘s mum and @sarvi ‘s husband! 😃

• This reply was modified 9 years ago by Lightning McStitch.

[Cat]

I am relatively new to this forum but @sarvi comment on her husband did make me wonder! 🙂 This made me smile as well as the idea of a sewing group, Trace This!

• This reply was modified 9 years ago by Cat.

[Cat]

I had a Rowenta from 7 years ago that worked superbly. And I have for 15 years had a Rowenta fixation believing they were wonderful irons. But I did a silly thing and basically ruined the last iron which I never had any issues with. When I went to buy a new iron, of course, I thought I would get a Rowenta. I read about the leaking and other issues and found one that seemed mostly to get positive reviews on sale.

After I got it tho, it was fine for like a month and then it also started leaking water while sewing using steam. I then found some reviews that alluded to this with this model. It does not happen every time and I did not know you should not fill it too high until reading that here.

I considered returning it but then almost every review I have read of any iron has seemed to have issues. There was one that sounded inexpensive and also good in my research which was maybe a Singer but I cant remember now!

You would think an iron could be designed to not leak and that Rowenta and the others would be experts at this, unless this is a version of planned obsolescence.

I also wondered why Rowenta went away from the turquoise green which I associated it with to different varying colors. Anyway, this is the first place I read anyone say they dealt with the leaking by using a spray bottle instead of putting water in it. I will consider doing that if it happens again. Thanks! And yes totally understand. Oh, I did have an inexpensive Black and Decker as a backup which does not have a lot of oomph but can suffice.

[Nicole]

I did four hours of ironing last night.
Slightly less enamoured of it at present.
😉