Ironing Fatigue

This week I have ironed like a woman possessed.  I'm all ironed out.  I never want to see that iron again, but it haunts me.  I know it will beckon me again next week ... 

The sun has been casting it's rays on my laundry leaving it crisp and fresh.  School uniform, shirts for Mr, jeans and more.  For the next vintage fair there have been lengths of fabric, lace edged tablecloths, doillies, trimmings, vintage clothing and a huge, stiff, linen cloth with creases like a world map, that nearly drove me over the edge.  The old tiles on the kitchen floor are sticky with starch (note to self #1: add scrub floor to list of tasks) and the bicep in my right arm is considerably larger than in my left (note to self #2: only use dumbell in left hand tonight!)

But, I give thanks to the spirit of Howard Seeley, inventor of the electric iron, patented in 1882.

...In like manner the electric flat-iron will smoothen her linen without fatiguing her. But not only the lady of the house will rejoice; also the poor, hen-pecked husband will be in transports of delight, as it will make his path easier in many ways. The constant complaints he was hitherto obliged to endure, will grow mute for ever...Johanna S. Wisthaler, By Water to the Columbian Exposition, 1894

Prior to that I would have been toiling with a fire heated flat iron (or sad iron).  Sometimes pressing garments on a hot day with a raging fire burning.  The heavy irons would be sitting in a line in front of the intense flames, ready to be used in rotation as the one in use cooled down.  I would have cheered when the charcoal iron superceded the tiresome row of flat irons ...



Now with a removable plate into which I can shovel burning embers.  No need to replace the hot coals as they cool - I can simply insert bellows into the hole by the handle and re-ignite the embers!

Must dash, the sun is shining and I have washing to hang out ...