Tag: iron

Dashing away with the smoothing iron…

Yuk.

Yuk.

I think it might be time to clean the iron, and fit the new ironing board cover.

This is what happens when you use a lot of synthetic fabrics and iron-on interfacing. Things melt and stick, and you’re left with a mess.

That’s why I usually buy the cheapest iron I can possibly find, and then use it until it’s either beyond cleaning, or the heating element burns out. Domestic irons aren’t designed to be used for hours and days at a time, so this tends to work out to a buying a new one every eighteen months or so.

I know that a lot of dressmakers swear by heavy-duty steam-generating irons. I’ve used them before, but find them too heavy for my bad wrist. I also find that the water tanks get full of limescale and the steam eventually leaves dirty marks on your fabric. I use a simple plant sprayer, using it to dampen either the fabric, the ironing board cover, or a separate pressing cloth. A nice hot iron on top creates plenty of steam.

When I (eventually) finish work on my current costume project and switch to my lovely organic cottons, I’d like to give up using iron-on interfacing altogether. Hopefully that should help my irons to last a bit longer – and make a lot less mess!

Hat the second…

Tweed hat

I spent Saturday afternoon making another hat.

It’s not finished yet – it needs a good steam pressing, a lining, and then a bit of trim.

I’ve cut out the pieces to make another one the same – except I’ll use a different interfacing and see what the difference is in the finished hat. This one’s interfaced with horsehair canvas, which shapes well, but is a bit floppy. And in combination with the tweed, makes the Shed smell like a damp farmyard when I steam it.

Speaking of which… I managed to explode yet another iron. There was a sort of a sproingy sound, and shortly afterwards the iron was cold. Oops. Paul kindly took me on an emergency trip to Asda, where I bought a new iron for the princely sum of £4. I never buy an expensive iron for sewing, on the grounds that domestic irons aren’t designed to be switched on and abused for eight hours at a time, so they’re going to break sooner rather than later. I never use the steam function (I prefer to generate steam by wetting the fabric and the ironing board), and I need something as small and light as possible because of my bad wrist. So, the cheapest iron in the shop wins the day.

I like this hat very much.
The only thing I’m not sure about is the placement of the pleat at the back. I think I’ve put it too close to the centre back seam, so it looks a bit like a mistake. I might move it a bit further round to the side on the next one.

I do love my sewing machine though. (A Pfaff 2024.) It chomped its way right through five layers of folded tweed and canvas as though it was nothing. Brilliant.