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Fanciful Tales
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Prize: Fitz Like A Glove™
Ironing Board Cover + felt value $55.75
From a journalist
"Journalists have
their own Lord's Prayer that embraces the line "Forgive us our Press
Passes"... and certainly few card-carrying members of the Press
Corps have yet to know the smug satisfaction that comes with
preferential treatment - deserved or otherwise.
But there are also the
times when it is neither expected nor intended.
Back in the Eighties,
I was part of a media entourage covering the International Science
Technology Exposition at Tsukuba outside Tokyo. I was staying at the
landmark Imperial Hotel which was also the venue for a media
reception hosted by the Fujitsu Corporation.
Returning from the
Expo site, I figured I had time for a bath before the reception and
when I emerged from the bathroom, my bed had been turned down, a
small confection had been left beside my pillow... and my jacket had
been stolen.
This seemed very
un-Imperial, so - before informing management - I attended the
reception sans jacket, pretending it was a sort of casual Australian
cultural statement.
When I eventually
returned to my room, there on the bed, elegantly boxed with leaves
of tissue folded through it, was my impeccably - pressed jacket. And
also in the box was the laminated label that I had left pinned to
it. It said: PRESS.
I don't know how many
people travel the world with laminated labels to attach to their
laundry, but at the Imperial Hotel they knew exactly what to do."
Rob Ingram "the
Country Squire" Dunedoo NSW
From an advertising executive
"Up to the age of 18 I had never used
an iron. We had an ironing lady and I had four sisters. So
everything was done for me. However into my 4th night on the Oriana,
bound for Canada (December 1966) I was faced with the horrendous
task of ironing jeans, shirts, undies. Yes, I could have easily
worn them crumpled and cried off "I'm a bachelor", but with steely
intent I headed to the ironing room. I switched on the iron, figured
out that the different settings were for different fabrics and then
started to look inside my clothes to find out what they were made
of!
This ironing was already becoming a
difficult task! As the word cotton appeared regularly on everything,
I set the iron for cotton. But what the hell was the steam setting
for?
I began the challenge. Badly. 3
minutes later a woman who had been watching me perform this ritual
offered to show me how to iron. She explained the settings to me,
when you used steam and when you didn't, how you iron shirts inside
out, where creases should be and should not be, and how collars on
good shirts are always ironed inside out. She spent at least half an
hour with me and to this day I still do what I learnt from her.
The only thing that has been a
continual frustration is the poor quality and tension of ironing
board covers. Now, I must have ironed in at least 100 hotels in
different parts of the world, and each ironing board represents a
different challenge. Nothing really worked. That was until I
noticed your stall at the Mosman markets and I purchased one of your
covers. What a revelation! At last a never shifting, ever taut surface to iron on. The iron now glides with great confidence across
crisp cotton shirts, denim jeans, anything that's in the basket. I
wouldn't change the cover for love nor money. It has turned ironing
from chore to delight." That's my story.
David Weekes NSW
From an historian
Today, I added another item to my ironing board renovation project -
a new felt underlay. I carefully uninstalled the
‘fits-like-a-glove’ apparatus, and balked. There it was - a faded,
scorched pale blue and pink cover with dead elastic that was
designed for a smaller board. I peeled if off. Next I uncovered
more pale blue (and white) - this time in complex, multiple
geometric patterns with images of pigs in the border at either end!
Then solid medium blue metallic-backed fabric. Still peeling - off
came two shades of dusty pink with a low-key floral pattern.
Another with white background and flowers.
I
recall that this board started life in 1972 with a floral pattern of
vibrant aquas, purples and greens. It is not here. Back then my
flat mate and I might just as easily have made our own covers. We
made dresses instead. I suppose I chose to get the ironing board
when we moved in together because I have always enjoyed ironing.
That makes me rather peculiar it seems, but the extra width was good
for the dress-making type ironing, too.
The peeling began to feel like an archaeological ‘dig’. If ironing
board covers had been more of a genuine fashion item, I might have
discovered a little time-capsule, but no, these covers have always
been hostage to the worst in taste - that universal patronising
notion that anything to do with women must be pastel and floral - or
bedecked with little animals, like pigs. And at any given time,
they must be limited to the smallest possible range of possibilities
within that subset. So in one period, only mauve and apricot are
available. In another, lemon and baby blue. Almost never PLAIN.
Geometric patterns were the only concession to those of us with an
aversion to the floral. Worse still, the fabric became of ever
poorer quality over the years. Who spends their working hours
creating such horrors? So thin they are transparent and stiff as if
drenched with starch. Perhaps they are. So they slipped and
ruffled under the iron, and grew shiny like Edwardian men’s shirt
collars. When washed they dried limp and skimpy and wrinkled the
‘get-a-new-one’ message at every sweep of the iron. Easier said
than done.
I
vaguely remember others. At some stage it must have seemed that the
old covers might compensate for the disintegrating underlay -
several layers of old yellowing blanket - squashed very, very flat.
Probably from my grandmother’s house and certainly of pre-world war
II vintage. The blanket stitch edging was probably done by her.
She was good at that. At home we ironed on several layers of old,
thick blanket topped with several folds of a very soft sheet
(presumably from endless washing), and laid out on the kitchen
table. Later we got a drop-down ironing board in a new cupboard in
the laundry - and it was covered with the foil-backed sort of
cover. It is supposed to work as well as a felt underlay by
reflecting the heat and steam. It doesn’t! Under the blanket was a
layer of soft foam rubber, also yellowing to brown and at the point
of disintegrating into crumbs. I suspect that came with the
original cover. Finally a thin layer of dark horsehair fabric. I
left that there.
Of
course none of the layers were a substitute for a decent felt
underlay. It is so long since I had seen such a thing on offer, I
scarcely noticed it in the catalogue. Now I remember the feel of
ironing on the blankets on the table, and the steam rising from the
specially dampened and rolled pillow cases. I could take all
afternoon to shell a pound of peas, but I couldn’t wait to iron the
handkerchiefs. Standing impatiently by my mother. Perhaps my
ironing is a kind of invocation of her. She certainly watches over
the handkerchiefs. And she would love the new felt underlay - just
like the lovely square she had under her typewriter, in grey. She
would love the pressing cloth too. Especially for pleats. I’ll
have to induct my daughters into the mysteries of pressing cloths.
Carolyn Rasmussen
VIC
From a Company
Director
Before my mother married my father, she was a couture dressmaker
with a top haute couture house in New York City. So everything in
our house was tailor made. My father was a commercial artist, but we
weren't wealthy. Commercial artists weren't valued then as they are
today. But we had the best of everything because of their combined
eye for beauty and detail.
Our ironing board was always covered in a tailor made cover made of
white, worn percale bed sheets. My mother's standard of 'worn'
definitely wasn't threadbare!! And the best, used, wool blanket
underneath for protection.
My
mother always kept a beeswax candle wrapped in a cotton cloth at the
end of her ironing board. Every time she wanted to clean the
bottom of her iron, or get her iron to glide over a heavy fabric,
she always passed her iron over the beeswax candle. The melting
beeswax emitted a beautiful fragrance that lingered in the kitchen.
Which is where I did my homework.
To
this day, the smell of melting beeswax never fails to remind me of
her ironing in the kitchen.
Carol NSW
From the
President The
Quilter's Guild of NSW
Like all of my family, I learnt to iron by doing the hankies with an
unplugged, cooling iron. My how I thought I had reached a milestone!
I can remember that I graduated early to having the iron plugged in
and turned on as I got so frustrated that I could not get the
creases 'just so'.
When we were teenagers my mother would regularly bemoan the fact
that all of us girls, (I have 4 sisters) when getting ready to go
out would turn the iron on and then jump into the shower. We thought
the iron needed this time to heat up, she could not understand why
we had to waste power. Well one day her dire warnings of disaster
came true when my sister came out of the bathroom to find the sole
plate of the iron had completely melted onto the ironing board.
Thank goodness it had not made it to the carpet below or the whole
house would have been alight!
When my son was a baby (mid 80's) I dressed him in lovely little
smocked sets made of linen or cotton - very 1950's. The only
drawback was that they needed starching and ironing. Friends and
family thought I was mad - 'put him in growsuits, they are so much
easier to care for'. For me though it was a labour of love and to
this day the smell of starch can transport me back to those times
and I remember fondly my smiling blue eyed baby boy and how adorable
he looked.
I
in turn taut my son to iron by the tried and tested "handkerchief"
method. He was very proud the first time he managed his own shirt
and he got to brag to his school mates that he could wash and iron
his own clothes. Let's just hope he keeps it up!
Ironing has gone from being something that I could not wait to learn
to do, to a bothersome never ending chore, complete with a sorcerers
apprentice style basket back to a pleasant albeit infrequent
activity. For the most part now my ironing board is used as an extra
surface in the sewing room and I mostly only press fabric and blocks
for quilting but very occasionally I get to relive the glory days
when I iron my partners shirts and so long as the basket is not
completely full I can honestly say it is enjoyable again.
Lorraine Trezise NSW
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