Remember the wringer washers, Chatty!? We hung clothes outside too.(I still do on nice sunny warm days). When it was below freezing, we hung the clothes in the basement. I can remember my grandma putting salt in her rinse water to keep the clothes from freezing out on the clothes lines in the winter months.

Cookie, when I called her, thats exactly what my mom said, wringer washers. I totally forgot those things. I remember how women got caught in the wringers from time to time, they were dangerous.

i rember those wasing machines called twin tubs heer, one part for washing one for spining and mangles, for wringling out cloths...

i never of thought of salt water but of course it makes perfect sense.
I still love the way cloths feel and smell on warm summer days after being hung up outside to dry.

ironing was my houshold job for my mum when i was younger lol do you think women the world over pass on that choire as quick as they can, and no wonder lol.

a good shake (of cloths) and a warm breze anfd little ironing needed. Your right about the cost as tuble driers are so expensive to run AND all our basic anemities electric, gas and home heating oil are sky rocketing in price again, just what you don't want as we had a massive snow fall (for uk lol) and its bitter cold.

andyway i can't wait for the weather to be good enough to line dry cloths.

One of my greatest delights when my oldest lad Robert was just a newborn, feeling like the proudest woman in the world..yes, I had my first beautiful boy...and more importantly at one moment was seeing twelve pure white towel nappies, twelve little tiny whit vests, many little perfectly white babygrows, several piars of tiddly white socks...all in that order dancing on the washing line(having just come from the twin tub that Celt spoke of)..You see, this would dictate a Moms status or how clean and organised your house was(and how well you looked after your baby!!)It realy was a compitition as every woman in the nearby houses taking part..I also remember the gossip if any woman hung 'grey' whites in a hap hazard way..I also remember starting the same when L was just a babe in arms...same feeling which most of my Irish female friends got straight away..(suggesting it was a time honoured Irish woman thing...not the Scotish woman thing!)

Celtic, I am nearly certain I was that woman who looked at you agast whilst spreading a towel on the carpeted floor ironing both mine and your clothes....you made me swear not to put creases down sleeves etc !!

I also remember you taking me shopping for products and you being totally amused and bewildered at me popping girlie products into a basket..."whats that cream for? You need that for what!!? There is a cream for that!!" etc Now your as bad with the products!!You lovely 'fem gem'.

Poppie

Mom and grandma had a sprinkle bottle.

My mom did too. As a girl of nine years old when having to stand on a chair in the basement to iron I could never understand why mother hung the clothes out all day to DRY! Then she'd spritz them with water, roll them up and sit them aside until we ironed then. To a kid, drying and then wetting again seemed rather odd. Why not just iron them straight out of the washer, it had a wringer on it.

I remember that ole wringer-washer they had. That thing was
scary. I'm with you Chatty, dry 'em then wet 'em? What kind of
sense does that make?

Then again, there are a lot of things in this world, which make
little or no sense! LOL...

Just to interrupt this fun conversation for a second:

Lynn, I have gone back to that thread again and again, wanting to contribute to it, but it is so complicated and painful to think about, much less write about, that I just let it go. I appreciated all your posts on the subject.

Back to ironing,

I grew up in sunny SoCal, so drying clothes on the line was not a problem. I remember how it felt to strain my young body and arms up to pin and unpin all the clothes. I remember the sheets most, all white, blowing in the wind, and I remember the smell of the clothes and the grass and the flowers in our yard, and I would usually do the chore barefoot, feeling the grass between my toes. It is a very pleasant memory.

Not that I didn't complain about it.

I was very happy when we graduated from these:



to these:



We also used the "T" shaped clothesline poles for climbing and swinging.

I used to have to iron my P.E. suit - a white cotton short sleeved shirt with snaps down the front and white shorts. It was a rather stiff fabric, and the snaps were a royal pain.

My mom also had a sprinkle bottle that I used. This was before irons came with steam. I still have the bottle - it is very politically incorrect, but then those were politically incorrect times. It is one of my treasures, a vivid reminder of my mom in good times. I found a picture of it on a collectibles website (I hope I'm not offending anyone by posting it):



After years of ironing this way, I know that sprinkling or spritzing water on the fabric makes wrinkles come out.

I had my ironing board set up with my iron on it, plugged in, ready to go, for most of my adult life. I ironed my dresses and slips for work, shirts, t-shirts, ex-hubbies shirts, all kinds of things, but NOT sheets. I always had to iron my dresses and pants because after a day of wearing them, they were always wrinkled, mainly from sitting.

I haven't worked for a few years, things have changed, and I haven't ironed for a long time.

It's nice how some of these threads can bring back some of these memories you didn't realize were there, tucked somewhere deep in your brain.