I HATE ironing. I HATE ironing with a passion, but……………………..
MadDad empties the bins, puts the washing on, mows the lawn and in exchange I do the ironing. This is our agreement, always has been and I think I got a pretty good deal all in all.
Each week I ironing his 5 work shirts and the boys school shirts. That is 15 shirts a week.
My mum also used to hate ironing and it was a job that she delegated pretty early on in my life. I remember her sewing my clothes and me ironing them. I remember her teaching me to iron, but I can not remember how old I was. She would let me lose on the tea towels and the bedding first. Then we moved on to t shirts, until I was finally left to iron everything. She showed me how to iron a shirt correctly and taught me all the terminology, the collar the cuffs, the yoke etc!
Last week I went to Tefal as I am part of their innovation panel and was introduced to the Tefal Pro Express Turbo. Now this is not an iron, no this is a steam generator and wow it is amazing, however, at £300 it really did need to be!
Normally on a Sunday I do my ironing whilst watching One Born Every Minute on catch up. But alas the series had ended, so I decided to watch Paul Hollywood instead and you know what I managed to get the ironing done in that time. Now those of you in the know, will understand this statement, but for the uninitiated OBEM is an hour long, whereas Paul Hollywood’s Bread is only 30 minutes long. So I managed to halve my ironing time. Which delighted me. OK this week wasn’t the week that I do our bedding, which is super kingsize and yes before you ask I ironing my own bedding because I love getting in to clean laundered and ironed sheets, but still it was a lot faster than usual.
The Tefal Pr Express has lots of positives, you can fill it up at the tap, large water tank, anti calc spoon for hard water areas, safety catch (so you can store the hot iron) and an auto off facility too. I do, however, need to get a new ironing board with somewhere to put the steam generator.
The thing that got me thinking about how old I was when I learned to iron was the fact the iron is a lot lighter than a traditional steam iron as it doesn’t have to have a tank to hold the water.
So when is the right time to teach my boys how to iron? When did you teach your children?
I will be interested to read the comments as I was thinking about this last week. I don’t feel my 9 year old is ready to use the iron yet but only as she doesn’t have good co-ordination and has weak wrists.
The iron does look fab but don’t think I could justify the price !
By the time I was 8, I was ironing hankies and pillowcases.
My Rowenta Steam Generator iron is fabulous, and cuts my ironing time significantly. But it IS heavy.
If I had young kids now, I’d get a lightweight £5 basics iron from the supermarket, just so they could learn the simple stuff. [and a water spray to squirt the dampness!!] It would be worth the money just to start them off on the right track.
blessings xx
Great post – I think it does make the ironing job quicker, doesn’t it :-). I haven’t got round to thinking abotu when to teach mine to iron. My oldest is 9. My daughter (nearly 7) did try to help with the ironing last year and now I have a nice burn mark in the carpet – think I’ll leave it a little while longer!
I’m just learning how to iron (age 27) and find it quite a complex task if you don’t want to burn anything/yourself, so I wouldn’t teach my kids to iron until they are teens.
I am finding my Pro Express makes things actually look as though they have been ironed, whereas with my normal iron – the shirts look no different after ironing, to what they did before. I have actually decided to start ironing things. Which we used to only do for weddings and funerals.