Tuesday was...

Tuesday follows Monday and that means ironing!
(refer to last weeks blog)

 

So Monday night The Old Farmers Wife took down the dry laundry from the line.

It was brought in and spread out on a table or the ironing board and sprinkled,

yes we made it wet again! Our Farmer's Wife technique was to dip her hand in bowl of water
and shake hand over the dry laundry. More citified folks had corked sprinkler caps you could
put on a bottle of your choice up to high end figurals. A great collectible. 

 

By the way fresh laundry brought in from outdoors smells so good,
now we buy fresh linen scent.

 

So sprinkled and folded and rolled up tight, packed back in the laundry basket overnight.

Sitting overnight allowed the sprinkling to evenly dampen the fabric before ironing.

This would be almost all but for towels and washcloths, and sheets,
altho I think some people did iron sheets too! But we gave them a good shake,
then folded them up in our house.

 

 

Us girls were trained starting with hankies only, then moved up to aprons, skirts then pants;

pants and pleats required a bit of skill but blouses/shirts were the hardest.

You started with the collar and cuffs, then went to the sleeves, then laying lengthwise over the edge of the board so you could iron out the center of the sleeve with the iron hanging

over edge of board so you wouldn't get a crease.
Halfway there! Now the shoulders over the tip of the board, then the body of shirt/blouse. 

 

As a previous comment noted on washday,

"no wonder my aunt was tired at the end of the day".

And that was just the half of it! No dryers or steam irons or wrinkle free fabrics....