How to Iron Correctly

You could say I’m a professional ironer. I iron for a living. I put an ad in the paper and have about 20 people that Iron for, most of them weekly. On average I iron about 2 to 3 dozen shirts and pants daily. Yes, I guess I do like to iron and would rather do that than go out and work retail. I can do ironing throughout the day at the time that suits me. I’ve ironed for people off and on now for over 10 years so I believe I’ve mastered the art of ironing, therefore I would like to share it with those of you who want to learn to iron correctly or those of you who hate ironing and might not hate it so much if you knew the correct way to do it.

When I started out ironing I couldn’t get a whole shirt or pair of pants ironed without getting wrinkles back in a part of it that I had already ironed. This tends to make a person hate ironing. Luckily,my mom knew what I was doing wrong and taught me the correct way to do it. Here’s what I learned…

A shirt with a collar:

First you open the collar and lay it flat. My first mistake was that I was ironing the crease in it where it folds down. This is incorrect and most people don’t like it done that way. A little starch will help keep the collar standing up like it should. Next, pull one of the shoulders up over the end of the board and iron it and then the other shoulder. After that you should iron the sleeves. Take the seam on the underside of the sleeve and make sure it is laying flat. Smooth out any wrinkles with your hand then iron it. Make sure to iron around the button on the long sleeve shirts to make for a nice neat cuff. Turn it over and to the other side the same way. Do this with both sleeves. Then lay the unbuttoned shirt down on the board with the button side first. Do not try to iron both sides of the shirt at the same time by putting the front and back of the shirt together on the board. It should be opened up and each part of the shirt ironed separately. Stretch out the shirt and smooth out the wrinkles with your hand. Iron between the buttons and move the shirt over a little at a time until you have gone all the way around the shirt. This order should make it easier to keep from putting wrinkles back into the shirt on the parts that you have already ironed. T-shirts should be done the same way but you don’t have to worry about a collar and buttons.