Tips to make your ironing easier!

You may have guessed since I'm here with my ironing board and my iron that this week's Ask Charlie is all about ironing.

It's also in collaboration with my lovely friend, Tia Tallulah, who has got a company that she's set up since the pandemic called The Clothes Peg, providing products to help us look after our clothes. They're products that you would normally buy from a dry-cleaner, but she's selling them directly to us! I've got a couple of her products and I will be showing you exactly how these work at the end of today's blog post and video.

I'm also showing you how to iron a lady's shirt. I've done a YouTube video before on how to iron and fold a men's shirt, but today it's one for the ladies! I'm wearing and shall be ironing an Alex Black shirt dress - they don't have buttons the whole way down, which can make ironing a little bit trickier. I'll also show you how I iron a frilly shirt as I get lots of questions about how to tackle frills. If you guys have been watching me for a while you'll know I love a frill, so I'm dab had at how to iron those too!

I use a steam iron and have had it for several years. I find it particularly brilliant for lots of bedsheets, which I have an abundance of running my B&B.

Let's get ironing!

Alex Black Shirt Dress:

Note - my iron is on a cotton setting. I also have a little bottle of water with a misting nozzle, so I can spray tougher areas lightly and give it a little extra help! It is easier to iron things when they are slightly damp, it does make a big difference!

You might notice that I keep standing my iron up. If you leave it face-down, it will burn a hole in your board. Tia has a heat pad you can purchase from The Clothes Peg if you'd like so you can leave it facing down on the board, but I've just got into the habit of standing it up.

I always start with the collar, giving it a good iron to straighten it right out.

Now move onto the sleeve. Lay the shirt down so the front of the sleeve is facing the ironing board. Get it as flat as you possibly can. It's a good idea to unbutton cuffs to help you get it really flat. Make sure that there are no creases or wrinkles underneath and make sure you go right up to the point of the shoulder. Then flip it over, and do the same on the other side.

Move onto the back of the shirt first, and pop it over the end of your ironing board. Give it a little bit of a dampen down with your spray bottle if need be!

Turn it on the ironing board as your iron, and make sure you get right up into the seams. Keep turning and ironing until you get right around to the front panel. Go up as high as your ironing board will allow.

It's important to iron the panel with the buttons on both sides because that is the front. Go right between those buttons.

Once you have got as high as you can go, flip your shirt on the board so it now has its top on the board, give it a bit of a spritz, and repeat your ironing and turning method. Don't forget to iron in between any buttons and try to keep it as flat as possible. You don't want to iron in creases because they are quite tricky to get out.

Once you've ironed the shirt completely, it's time to fold away nicely to preserve all of your hard work. You can either hang or fold, but if you're travelling it's much easier to fold it. Actually, it's a really good idea to put a piece of tissue paper in between the folded section if you're off on a trip, and then it's less likely to crease.

Do the buttons up and then lay the shirt on its front. Bring the sleeves in and down, give it a smooth down. Fold the whole shirt in half, and you're done!

Now it's time to tackle a frill:

A lot of people are put off by buying shirts and frilly things because of looking after them and ironing them. So I thought I'd just show you how easy it is actually to tackle the tricky ironing so you can enjoy those pieces you want!

The first thing I do is carefully iron all of the frills. You don't need to iron frills, but actually, I think they sit a lot better if they aren't given a quick press with the tip of the iron all the way around. Just be super careful and do it in little pieces.

Now move onto the cuffs. I always start at the neck of a shirt and then move on to the cuffs. Give them a good iron and as before, move onto the sleeves. Keep them as flat as can be and get them nice and crisp.

Next up is the front of the shirt. Get your shirt as deep onto the end of your ironing board as you can and start to iron from the bottom up. I find just using a little bit of tension on some shirts to ensure it stays flat means I can get in to iron below the frill easier. Flip your shirt round on the board so you can now reach the neck and give all of that area attention too.

Now I don't tend to fold frilly blouses, I pop it on a hanger and hang it up.

The Clothes Peg - Sweater Brick:

This special brick from The Clothes Peg removes pilling and knots from polyester, knits, knitwear, and other fabrics. It's a product that dry cleaners would use, but now through The Clothes Peg it is something that you can get direct. And the great thing about this is going to last for years and years, so you only need to get one! You simply rub it over any bobbles or piling that might be happening on your garments and restore them to life! You need to be a little gentler on pieces such as fine knits and cashmere and use it delicately, but it does a fantastic job.

The Clothes Peg - EZ-Off

And now for cleaning your iron. In my Efficient Home Course, I taught people how to de limescale their iron. If you have a standup iron you would put two-thirds water, one-third white vinegar into the water canister. Then you'd heat it, press the steam button and all the gunk will come out. If you have got a lot of gunk around your holes, you can put white vinegar on a cotton bud and carefully clean those out. White vinegar is great at tackling limescale. For my steam iron, I would put the same mixture into my water container and use the same method.

However if it's the surface of the plate you're looking to clean quickly and effectively, you can use this product from The Clothes Peg! Your iron won't glide nicely if it's dirty, plus you run the risk of transferring marks so it's a great idea to keep on top of your iron cleaning.

EZ-Off is used to 'remove starch scorch and solid and foreign residue from all hot metal ironing surfaces'. Dry cleaners use this to clean the plates of their irons, it is from America and apparently it is brilliant. My iron is actually quite clean already so I can't show you a dramatic before and after, but I'm going to give it a go!

So you reduce the heat of your iron - this is meant to be done whilst the plate is still hot - and just squeeze a good amount of this onto an old cloth or flannel. This product is something you've got to be very, very careful using as you're wiping the hot plate itself. It swiftly removes any marks and it smells really nice too! Then just grab another clean cloth and wipe your iron over that to clean the product away and buff. Push the steam a few times to clean out the holes and voila!

So there we go! I do hope that you found this week helpful!

It's really, really important to look after your appliances because then they will look after you too.

Thank you to The Clothes Peg for collaborating with me. If you would like either of these products that I've shown you today, hit this link to visit The Clothes Pegs website. And thank you again Alex Black for this gorgeous, gorgeous shirt dress and shirt. I love her designs - do go and take a look at those as well by clicking right here!

Wishing you a fabulous weekend. Thank you so much for reading and remember that if there's something from me you would like to see, do get in touch! See you again next week.

Love, Charlie x