This threadlet about ironing is cheering! Some 10 years ago my husband decided that a certain line of cotton needlecord long-sleeved shirts were comfortable, cheap and in suitably muted colours. So he bought about a dozen! Honestly it's like ironing hearthrugs! Once the cold weather returns and the horrible shirts re-surface, I shall try all these anti-ironing strategies. Thankyou.
I only iron when sewing. Husband irons his own shirts so if we are going out he irons my dress too. He’s trying to teach our sons but they’re not keen.
Conference is finished so I’m cooking chicken casserole and rice then going to the Zoom bible study. My eyes are tired of screens!
I haven't ironed anything in years. My wife recently pulled out the iron for the first time in a long, long while to iron some bags prior to fabric painting. If I've got to look smart I wear a three-piece suit so any rumples in the shirt are hidden beneath the waistcoat.
When I get out the stored things I hang them up and spray the creases with cold water. The creases drop out, I put the things on. (Sometimes wet.)
Wearing damp muslin was a Thing in the Regency. But then so was Consumption.
My uniform is loose trousers and long tops - preferably in garish florals. I have about 20 which rotate on hangers distributed over the wardrobe (since the interior is full).
I quite like ironing, but I only do it once a fortnight or so. Certainly not doing it with the temperature in the 30s.
Today we got up at three, and went for an (very) early walk down our local small river. The rest of the day has been spent sleeping, and lazing about, apart from a small walk to local Turkish shop for some baclava and a pomegranate
I rarely iron, although I have had to get it out this evening so Mr Dragon could look smart on a Zoom call.
This afternoon I have been out plant shopping at a local garden centre that grows their own, so we have beans and bedding plants to put in the garden tomorrow morning. It was very hot out, even with the air-conditioning on in the car. When I got into it about half two, the thermometer said it was 32 in the sun.
Dinner was duck fried rice, using the meat left from Sunday's whole roast duck, followed by choc ices.
I really only iron when I have to: most of my clothes don't need it, but those that do, do with a vengeance!
Today's lot is still in the laundry basket though - having been 24° this afternoon (and still 21° at 9 o'clock at night), the Iron Ing isn't getting an outing quite yet.
S. and I got our exercise today by taking a load of cardboard* from her garage to the recycling centre. We had thought it would involve a shedload of queuing and red tape - you had to book a slot before going, and there were rules about bringing ID and not opening your car windows - but apart from their having a new one-way system it was quite painless. The gentlemen manning the entrances waved us in in a cheerful way, and it was quite therapeutic to haul the stuff from the car and chuck it over the wall into the collection pit.
As we were quite near her sister-in-law's house, we called in to see her and sat in her garden for a chat. It was lovely to see her, and the chat was grand, but the heat!!!
* the wrappings from some of her many lockdown retail therapy sessions
I seem to have more clothes that need ironing in summer than in winter, cotton tops mainly. As nobody is seeing me at the moment I guess I don’t need to bother.
I do like my pillowcases to be ironed though, but the pile can wait till it gets bigger and the weather gets cooler.
Pretty much the only time(s) I've employed the iron since I've been in Scotland (>10yrs) has been for the purposes of attempting to create face coverings in the current climate...
I can create the designed pleats/shaping. Whether it fits/is a sensible thing to do is another discussion...
on hangers distributed over the wardrobe (since the interior is full).
That makes three of us who use that system. In lieu of ironing I hang garments on the shower-curtain rail over a steamy bath. I did also try using a garment steamer when a new item or charity shop purchase arrived very crumpled. Far easier to put into action than an iron plus ironing board.
I suppose this garment 'twice a year' is something like trousers, which come in pairs as well?
Interestingly, I myself rather like ironing. I can catch up with a lot of my beloved BBC (or other) TV documentaries, and thus learn something new at the same time. I have just bought both series of 'Britain's Most Historic Towns' with Professor Alice Roberts on DVD, for instance. I love history!
Also, since I discovered how to iron stuff properly, from the very astute 'The Gentleman's Gazette' website and their YouTube videos, nothing can stop me now, and it definitely has become much easier! In addition, I'm learning from them about different types of clothing styles and fabrics, which is great fun.
With the help of aforementioned DVDs I also realised that during the US Civil War, there was a great shortage of cotton, and that's when linen was being grown to huge extents, and a lot of it in Norn Irn, leading to the nickname 'Linenopolis' for Belfast, which I hadn't been aware of before.
An interesting note on linen, Wesley J. And thanks for the tip on the Alice Roberts DVD, I don’t know that series.
I’m not working today and I’m not sure I’m in the mood to study. I’m contemplating doing some dress making but wonder if I have the energy or whether I will end up hot and bothered. Hm. Might sort and wash some fleece.
I don’t iron. I find if you never iron a garment it never needs it.
Men’s do need ironing - so the men do their own. I taught my sons to iron aged eleven. They went to school in creased shirts until they started noticing girls.
My sons now do all theirs for the week, my husband does his just before he wears it. It’s a rare occurrence that he ever wears a shirt these days since retirement.
My eldest son is one of those people who can look good whatever he wears. His uniform is laundered at work and he showers and puts it on there every day.
The other son (a pilot who hasn’t worked for weeks, but starts again next week) does all his in one go.
30 here! I’m indoors, with windows and curtains closed and 2 fans on, so comfortable if I don’t do much moving about! I think it’s supposed to be cooler tomorrow; I really hope so as I missed my daily walk yesterday and won’t be going today because of the heat.
Hehe...actually, it wasn't in direct sunlight...but it could have been picking up the ground temperature, I guess. Once I got going, with windows open, the gauge dropped to a chilly 26C...
It does depend ... my experience here in South Wales is that people start saying, "Oh, it's so hot" at a point of 5° lower than they do in south-east England. (They keep their heating on lower in winter, too!) Probably if you live in a country where summer temperatures regularly rise to 40°, 26° becomes "refreshingly cool" or even "time to put on another layer". (Mind you, some of those countries also have incredibly cold winters - how do they cope?
I've no idea what the temperature is here today, other than Very Hot. I didn't sleep well because of the heat and so was up late (for me) which completely threw my day. After lunch my bad night caught up with me so I had a siesta and haven't really done any of the things I was planning today, but there's always tomorrow. It's too hot to start cooking yet but Mr Nen and I are enjoying having our evening meals on the patio. Then it'll be time for the watering.
I never iron either. I do a lot of smoothing and folding, shaking things well before hanging them on the line and, in the winter, hovering near the tumble dryer so that I can whisk things out and put them on hangers as soon as it's finished.
Have a 'recipe' for melon sorbet I've been to try. Cube melon, freeze, stick in liquidiser with lemon juice and small amount of maple syrup. Press button until a shadow of it's former self. Eat.
O. K. The recipe in The Guardian for flammküchen looked eminently doable - I had the bacon, onion and creme fraiche - what could go wrong?
I'll tell you. The dough is very soft and very sticky and has to be rolled thinly. Getting the resultant sheet on to a hot baking tray is a quiet nightmare. And hot, as in oven at 230° on an evening when the ambient kitchen temperature is probably about 30°C.
It was alright, if not exactly Summer Evening in Alsace (even with the aid of a nice rosé) but I think going into the Never Again folder.
Our living room curtains spend most of the time closed to stop it being too hot in the afternoon, as that's where we tend to work.
I got the sunflowers runner beans in and the paddling pool filled by about 11, then we did stuff inside until 3:30 at which point suncream was reapplied and the Dragonlets and I enjoyed the pleasantly cool, but not straight off the mains chilly, water. The bedding plants and french beans waited until this evening, followed by an overdue haircut for the lawn!
Food today was of the salad type, but the half-frozen iced tea will wait for tomorrow now.
Our south facing french doors stick when the hot midsummer sun heats it up. Generally, at this time of year, that is from about 10:00 until the sun moves round to the side of the house and we start to get a bit of shade along the south facing wall. We can usually open the door again at about 2:30 in the afternoon.
This morning I came in from the garden at 8:30 and shut the french doors behind me. 20 minutes later they were stuck closed. It was 6pm before they were cool enough to open again.
O. K. The recipe in The Guardian for flammküchen looked eminently doable - I had the bacon, onion and creme fraiche - what could go wrong?
I'll tell you. The dough is very soft and very sticky and has to be rolled thinly. Getting the resultant sheet on to a hot baking tray is a quiet nightmare. And hot, as in oven at 230° on an evening when the ambient kitchen temperature is probably about 30°C.
It was alright, if not exactly Summer Evening in Alsace (even with the aid of a nice rosé) but I think going into the Never Again folder.
Pizza peel and baking parchment are your friend. I use them for transferring pizza to a baking stone or hot tray - after a couple of minutes cooking you can slide the baking parchment out from underneath.
O you Gourmet Chefs, one and all! I. Am. Impressed.
For lunch today (the Wevver being quite Ot, as my old Nana used to say), I have a baked Spud ready to go into the nuclear reactor microwave, which Spud will be accompanied by Pastrami, and a Green Salad (with French dressing).
Some Grapes, and a Banana, to follow, I think. I went to the shop earlier, but forgot to buy one of my favourite varieties of French CHEESE (Comte)...
We had quite a tropical-style downpour at around 5am today, though it didn't last long. What a lovely fresh aroma of wet air, grass, earth etc. resulted, though!
O. K. The recipe in The Guardian for flammküchen looked eminently doable - I had the bacon, onion and creme fraiche - what could go wrong?
I'll tell you. The dough is very soft and very sticky and has to be rolled thinly. Getting the resultant sheet on to a hot baking tray is a quiet nightmare. And hot, as in oven at 230° on an evening when the ambient kitchen temperature is probably about 30°C.
It was alright, if not exactly Summer Evening in Alsace (even with the aid of a nice rosé) but I think going into the Never Again folder.
Pizza peel and baking parchment are your friend. I use them for transferring pizza to a baking stone or hot tray - after a couple of minutes cooking you can slide the baking parchment out from underneath.
I'll bear that in mind in the unlikely event. I do have leftover dough, but I think bijou flatbreadettes.
Meanwhile the day is thickening, thunderstorms are forecast. And I am going to make something for dinner which requires absolutely no leaning over a hot stove.
We had left over home-made vegetable burgers (made by my wife at the weekend) for tea yesterday, and I prepared to go with them potato salad and a mixed salad including some fresh basil leaves for interest.
We followed it with cool crème caramel which I had made earlier in the day (and which I was very pleased with!) and/or fruit salad which my wife had prepared.
Everything was purposely cool, and nothing involved time spent over a hot stove.
Couldn't get the place cool enough to close windows & doors until midnight. Finally got to sleep about 02:30. Woke to the noise of thunder at 04:00 and gave up trying to sleep an hour later. There had been some rain, but none of any significance.
Pottered in the garden, had breakfast & popped down to the local Sainsburys Local to get necessities for the w/e, then went back to bed at 09:30 and slept for a couple of hours.
There might be rain at about 6 tomorrow morning, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll just be grateful if the temperature has dropped anything near the 10degrees the forecasters promised..
Very dramatic weather here an hour ago. Purple skies, continuous rumblings, a couple of flashes of lightning then torrential rain and malteser size hail stones. 15 minutes of persistent precipitation and then it went as quick as it came. Back to blue skies and singing birds. Am pretty sure it wasn't just my imagination.
We've just had some pretty good rumblances, the sky's turned that sort of dark yellowish-black that you get before Interesting Weather, and it's now coming down in stair-rods.
It's not surprising really: it was very sticky and muggy a few hours ago, but it's cooled a good bit now to more comfortable temperatures.
It's a lovely morning!
Steady light rain since just after 5am.
A little heavier and a couple of hours more would be perfect as the rain hasn't yet reached those plants in the lee of the house, but the sky is already brightening so that's not likely. However, most of the garden is looking much happier, and I am enjoying the cooler temperature.
Thunderstorms at 5am, followed by torrential rain. It's now hazy; the sort of haze you sometimes get before a scorching day. However the forecast is for cool and cloudy.
I've just been out in a rain shower that was rather more heavy than I was led to believe it was going to be by the BBC weather app. Kept the local economy going by buying a coffee in one of the local independent food places that has just opened, but resisted the cake in the bakers next door.
Gave up trying to sleep through the earlier thunderstorm and by half five was ensconced in an arm chair with glass of milk , (homemade) jam sandwich and Radio Scotland on the Walkman radio.
Comments
Conference is finished so I’m cooking chicken casserole and rice then going to the Zoom bible study. My eyes are tired of screens!
Wearing damp muslin was a Thing in the Regency. But then so was Consumption.
My uniform is loose trousers and long tops - preferably in garish florals. I have about 20 which rotate on hangers distributed over the wardrobe (since the interior is full).
Today we got up at three, and went for an (very) early walk down our local small river. The rest of the day has been spent sleeping, and lazing about, apart from a small walk to local Turkish shop for some baclava and a pomegranate
This afternoon I have been out plant shopping at a local garden centre that grows their own, so we have beans and bedding plants to put in the garden tomorrow morning. It was very hot out, even with the air-conditioning on in the car. When I got into it about half two, the thermometer said it was 32 in the sun.
Dinner was duck fried rice, using the meat left from Sunday's whole roast duck, followed by choc ices.
Today's lot is still in the laundry basket though - having been 24° this afternoon (and still 21° at 9 o'clock at night), the Iron Ing isn't getting an outing quite yet.
S. and I got our exercise today by taking a load of cardboard* from her garage to the recycling centre. We had thought it would involve a shedload of queuing and red tape - you had to book a slot before going, and there were rules about bringing ID and not opening your car windows - but apart from their having a new one-way system it was quite painless. The gentlemen manning the entrances waved us in in a cheerful way, and it was quite therapeutic to haul the stuff from the car and chuck it over the wall into the collection pit.
As we were quite near her sister-in-law's house, we called in to see her and sat in her garden for a chat. It was lovely to see her, and the chat was grand, but the heat!!!
* the wrappings from some of her many lockdown retail therapy sessions
I do like my pillowcases to be ironed though, but the pile can wait till it gets bigger and the weather gets cooler.
I can create the designed pleats/shaping. Whether it fits/is a sensible thing to do is another discussion...
Interestingly, I myself rather like ironing. I can catch up with a lot of my beloved BBC (or other) TV documentaries, and thus learn something new at the same time. I have just bought both series of 'Britain's Most Historic Towns' with Professor Alice Roberts on DVD, for instance. I love history!
Also, since I discovered how to iron stuff properly, from the very astute 'The Gentleman's Gazette' website and their YouTube videos, nothing can stop me now, and it definitely has become much easier! In addition, I'm learning from them about different types of clothing styles and fabrics, which is great fun.
With the help of aforementioned DVDs I also realised that during the US Civil War, there was a great shortage of cotton, and that's when linen was being grown to huge extents, and a lot of it in Norn Irn, leading to the nickname 'Linenopolis' for Belfast, which I hadn't been aware of before.
Fascinating!
I’m not working today and I’m not sure I’m in the mood to study. I’m contemplating doing some dress making but wonder if I have the energy or whether I will end up hot and bothered. Hm. Might sort and wash some fleece.
Men’s do need ironing - so the men do their own. I taught my sons to iron aged eleven. They went to school in creased shirts until they started noticing girls.
My sons now do all theirs for the week, my husband does his just before he wears it. It’s a rare occurrence that he ever wears a shirt these days since retirement.
My eldest son is one of those people who can look good whatever he wears. His uniform is laundered at work and he showers and puts it on there every day.
The other son (a pilot who hasn’t worked for weeks, but starts again next week) does all his in one go.
They are interlaced activities. If you are dressmaking properly, you press open seams and darts as you go.
Is it like a Speeling Bee, only with sharp bits?
I'd better go and amble before it gets really silly ...
I went out to the shop earlier today (about 930am), and my car told me that the temperature was 32C!
I suspect it was telling me a Hideous Fib...
The humans are now inside and drinking refreshing lemonade. The dogs are snoozing on the cool tiles in the hall.
I have to stop the dogs going out as Tatze sunbathes on the decking in her black fur coat 🙄
You need to keep your Automobile inside a giant Stephenson Screen: https://tinyurl.com/y8vmhywh although you might have difficulty hoisting it inside.
I had a nice little amble earlier, while it was still a civilised 21°. It's now pushing 26, so I'm staying indoors!
I never iron either. I do a lot of smoothing and folding, shaking things well before hanging them on the line and, in the winter, hovering near the tumble dryer so that I can whisk things out and put them on hangers as soon as it's finished.
I'll tell you. The dough is very soft and very sticky and has to be rolled thinly. Getting the resultant sheet on to a hot baking tray is a quiet nightmare. And hot, as in oven at 230° on an evening when the ambient kitchen temperature is probably about 30°C.
It was alright, if not exactly Summer Evening in Alsace (even with the aid of a nice rosé) but I think going into the Never Again folder.
I got the sunflowers runner beans in and the paddling pool filled by about 11, then we did stuff inside until 3:30 at which point suncream was reapplied and the Dragonlets and I enjoyed the pleasantly cool, but not straight off the mains chilly, water. The bedding plants and french beans waited until this evening, followed by an overdue haircut for the lawn!
Food today was of the salad type, but the half-frozen iced tea will wait for tomorrow now.
This morning I came in from the garden at 8:30 and shut the french doors behind me. 20 minutes later they were stuck closed. It was 6pm before they were cool enough to open again.
Pizza peel and baking parchment are your friend. I use them for transferring pizza to a baking stone or hot tray - after a couple of minutes cooking you can slide the baking parchment out from underneath.
For lunch today (the Wevver being quite Ot, as my old Nana used to say), I have a baked Spud ready to go into the nuclear reactor microwave, which Spud will be accompanied by Pastrami, and a Green Salad (with French dressing).
Some Grapes, and a Banana, to follow, I think. I went to the shop earlier, but forgot to buy one of my favourite varieties of French CHEESE (Comte)...
We had quite a tropical-style downpour at around 5am today, though it didn't last long. What a lovely fresh aroma of wet air, grass, earth etc. resulted, though!
I'll bear that in mind in the unlikely event. I do have leftover dough, but I think bijou flatbreadettes.
Meanwhile the day is thickening, thunderstorms are forecast. And I am going to make something for dinner which requires absolutely no leaning over a hot stove.
We followed it with cool crème caramel which I had made earlier in the day (and which I was very pleased with!) and/or fruit salad which my wife had prepared.
Everything was purposely cool, and nothing involved time spent over a hot stove.
Pottered in the garden, had breakfast & popped down to the local Sainsburys Local to get necessities for the w/e, then went back to bed at 09:30 and slept for a couple of hours.
There might be rain at about 6 tomorrow morning, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll just be grateful if the temperature has dropped anything near the 10degrees the forecasters promised..
It's not surprising really: it was very sticky and muggy a few hours ago, but it's cooled a good bit now to more comfortable temperatures.
Steady light rain since just after 5am.
A little heavier and a couple of hours more would be perfect as the rain hasn't yet reached those plants in the lee of the house, but the sky is already brightening so that's not likely. However, most of the garden is looking much happier, and I am enjoying the cooler temperature.
Gave up trying to sleep through the earlier thunderstorm and by half five was ensconced in an arm chair with glass of milk , (homemade) jam sandwich and Radio Scotland on the Walkman radio.