Anyone Good at Ironing Please Tell Me How!

its really tough to explain in type. but look on you tube. I know there are tutorial videos on there.

I was going to answer, since when I was a 4-H member many years ago, we were taught how to iron systematically so that you ended up with no wrinkles. However, the other ladies have done so well I don't need to! You should become a champion at ironing if you read their advice.

Before you start to iron your garment you must place it on the ironing board, and smooth the garment out on the ironing board with your hand. Run your hand down the garment in its entirety checking for lumps, and bumps. If, and when you feel any you must straighten it out by finding the fold, and fixing it preferably from the seam of the item that you're ironing. Once the garment is smooth from front to back, and you don't feel any folds in the garment then you can begin to iron. Make sure that the iron has water in it to produce steam. That helps iron out the stubborn hard to iron wrinkles.

When ironing a shirt with a collar to it, you must open up the shirt to iron it out. If you're good enough to iron the shirt without opening it up then that's a plus.

The BEST trick I have EVER found is called Wrinkle Release!! I get it at Target in the fabric softener isle ~ it's a spray bottle. It doesn't help if you need a crease, but let's face it, we almost never do anymore :) A little spray of the "magic stuff" as we call it in my house and a good shake and you're a couple minutes away from neat clothes. I stopped ironing all our work clothes (unless there is a special occasion that deems creases truly necessary), and save money not needing a weekly massage anymore from lugging the heavy iron! Our morning habit is to spray our clothes, hang them in the bathroom, and let the magic and steam do their thing! By the time your clean and dry, so are the clothes. No iron, no forgetting to get the clothes from the dryer~again~ no burned clothes and NO SORE BACK!!!
Good Luck~
H.

Mist it with water and throw it in the dryer for 5 minutes on high heat. If you get it right away, and it wasn't super wrinkled to begin with (like being left at the bottom of the laundry basket), the wrinkles will have relaxed themselves. Of course, you can only do this for stuff that won't shrink. (Guess who else isn't any good at ironing?)

The Internet is full of how-to videos. You can check out this clip on how to iron clothes from monkeysee.com: http://www.monkeysee.com/play/9288-how-to-iron-clothes

You might also check out YouTube.com or ehow.com for instructional videos on this topic. Good luck!

The best trick I ever learned came from my husband. Use the SQUARE end of the ironing board to lay your clothes over, rather than the narrow pointed end. This give the garment lots of surface area, and little overlap.

The other thing I suggest is not pressing down on the iron, and move the iron SLOWLY over the clothes. Lots of people make the mistake of running the iron back and forth or up and down so rapidly that the iron does not have enough time to actually press the garment.
Good luck

Most of the clothes in my family don't have to be ironed - I fold them as soon as the dryer turns off. If you can't get them right out of the dryer, spray the clothes lightly in the dryer with water, then dry for another 15 min. I do have to iron some clothes though - I just make sure both sides are smooth, or I put them on the end of the ironing board so I'm only ironing one side.

One thing you want to do is to make sure the iron isn't too hot. It should say on it where to turn the dial for different fabrics. This will help with the scorching. Also, just run the iron across the fabric without leaving it to sit on the fabric. Do you have an ironing board? This will really help if you have one. Make sure you lay the item out as flat as can be, wrapping shirts and other items of clothing around the ironing board, so you only have 1 layer of fabric at a time. Pants are a little tougher to do this way, but it's manageable. Just stay calm... I know once I get frustrated with something it becomes harder to accomplish because my frustration gets in the way. Ironing really isn't that bad, once you can get the hang of it. :) So take a deep breath and try again.

I looked on google on how to iron clothes and I am going to post some links. I thing it's easier to show someone than to try and explain.

I will pass on my most important tool for ironing. Womens shirts that have Lycra inthem are the hardest thing in this world to iron. the stretch and the lycra burns before the cottongets the wrinkle sout. So iron them on a lower setting.

http://www.betterlifestyleproducts.com/how-to-iron-clothe...

Lots of videos on how to iron just about anything.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=how+to+iron+clothes...#

I'm guessing that you're pressing down on the iron because the opposite wrinkles up. When you press down and forward you do create wrinkles. Just lightly hold the iron as you move it forward, side to side, and/or backward. First, be sure that the fabric is flat and smooth on both sides. However, most ironing is done to one piece of fabric at a time. The only time you'd have 2 sides or 2 pieces would be with sleeves and legs that don't fit over the end of the ironing board.

Open up the garment and lay it over the ironing board with the top of the garment at the narrow end of the board. Then start at the bottom and gently push the iron towards the top. Once that section is ironed move the garment to the next section, going all around the garment.

There is a routine to use depending on the garment. Start with shirts/blouses by first ironing the collar and sleeves. Then the body. Place the shoulders, one at a time, over the narrow end of the board to iron them. If the fabric is so wrinkled that you can't smooth it out by hand first then using a spray bottle with a fine spray or the spray from the iron spray the fabric before ironing. Most of today's fabrics iron nicely by just using a steam iron.

For pants, press the waist band and placket first and then the top part of the pants. I do this by placing the pants over the narrow end with the waistband towards the center of the board.

Press, with the point of the iron into pleats and gathers. Lightly press the top of a pleat, using just the point of the iron, once you've pressed the body of the garment.

I do have some cotton items that I sprinkle, roll up, put in a plastic bag and leave for a few hours before I iron them.

If you're talking about pressing something, such as wool or wool like fabric pants then you may want to use a pressing cloth (I use an old thin diaper) which you first make damp by wetting about 1/4 of the cloth, squeezing the water out while leaving it damp, folding it up with the wet part inside and squeezing once more so that the moisture is spread thruout the entire cloth. Then place that over the garment which you've placed on the ironing board and smoothed out with your hand making sure that both the top layer and the bottom layer are wrinkle free.

Pressing a tailored jacket is tricky. When I wore really nice wool suits I used a sleeve roll so that the sleeve didn't have a crease. Sometimes you can carefully do this without the sleeve roll by pressing from the seam outward being careful to not press a crease. The shoulder seams need to stay rounded on a tailored garment as do the top of the sleeves. A tailor's ham works best for those areas but again you can do it without one by carefully using only the point of the iron pressing a very small section at a time.

I seldom wear anything that I have to iron. In today's world lightly wrinkled over all the garment is acceptable. Some offices may be exceptions to the wrinkles OK style. I take my garments out of the dryer immediately while they still have some moisture in them. I can't actually feel the moisture. They just don't feel bone dry. I then hang them up and they're ready to wear. I do some finger pressing along plackets and collars.

Do you have a good pad on your ironing board? Have you tried misting with water from a spray bottle? Read the label on the item to be ironed before setting the iron to a heat setting. Spray starch is good but tricky. It's ery hard to get a wrinkle out when starched in(apply a little water with your finger along the mistake). Practice on floursack dishtowels, handkerchiefs or pillowcases to get the hang of the weight of the iron and the differnt heat settings.

my sister taught me to lightly spray the item with water or put a damp towel on top of item so I tried and it worked ok for me oh she also said to make sure you smooth out the item the best you can and do small areas at a time til you get the hang of it..goodluck:) oh and I am not from Chicago I am from Red Deer Alberta, Canada can't seem to change that in my profile lol..

Make sure you check the label on the clothes before you iron. You need to set the temperature of your iron to match the clothing. A too hot iron will cause clothing to wrinkle or scorch. If your clothes are doing this, try a less hot setting. Only linen and cotton need the highest setting. Lighter clothing like silk and rayon need the lowest possible setting. Also, a good quality iron is essential. Try the Rowenta iron, it is pricey, but well worth the price. A good pad is on the board is also necessary.
Lay your clothing flat on the ironing board and work section by section. (If I am ironing a shirt, I start with the collar first, then the sleeves, then each section of the shirt.)
The best advice I received was from my mother in law. Use spray sizing. The store also sells spray starch, but sizing is even better. Spray it on the section you are ironing and let it permeate the clothing for a few seconds. Then iron. Presto! Beautiful clothes! The spray sizing also helps keep the shirt looking nicer longer while you are wearing it.

Forget the IRON! I just bought my first fabric steamer and I love it. I will never go back to the ironing board!! I got the one made by CONAIR, called "Ultimate Fabric Steamer." On box it says in a tiny black circle, "60 minutes of professional high velocity steam." I purchased it at Wal-Mart.

It has a white water container that fills easily from the top. I just hang a shirt on the post that comes with it, and zap! . . . wrinkles are gone. Love it. TAKE YOUR TIME putting the post together. Instructions were a little fuzzy. I know if I would have let a MAN put it together they would have skipped instructions and jabbed 2 pieces together that didn't belong together perhaps bending a part. The thickest post goes at the bottom, thinnest post at the top.

Also to save money - - don't buy clothes that say "Dry-clean only." The chemical used in dry-cleaning - - perchloro-something - - is a cancer-causing agent. The fumes that come off your clothes in your closet could make you or your children sick! The government had to enact laws to protect dry-clean workers from the fumes. But most cleaners STILL use this chemical. I see a few here and there that are switching to a GREEN method, but they are few and far between.

Get a spray bottle and fill it with water. Use it to spray the clothes for a steam iron (yes - i know irons have a built in steam iron feature but that gets clogged and icky soooo easily). Use startch lightly once you get the hang of ironing. On shirts, start with the collar and shoulders, then do the front and back and save the sleeves for last.

I also agree that Wrinkle Release is awesome! It is also available at Ralphs. :-)

I believe that you can get clear instructions at Martha Stewart's website. She put out a special topic magazine some years ago on the topic of caring for clothes and other fabric pieces within a home. It covered laundering, spot removal, ironing, hanging things properly or folding for drawers and so forth. I bet you could find what you need there. At 58, I have done my share of ironing over the years. A few hints when buying clothing: 100% percent cotton anything is a pain. Always look for cotton blends as they tend to come out of the dryer looking nice and often don't need ironing. Avoid cotton pieces made in India, they are guaranteed to come out looking like a tightly wound ball of junk. If you can afford clothing from LLBean or Lands End that specifically says "wrinkle free" or "no iron" you can save yourself some time. Learning about fabrics will help you to buy clothing needing less work. Again Martha Stewart's sight should cover this. Using a good iron makes a big difference, Rowenta is excellent. Look for guides as to what settings your iron should be on for different fabrics so you don't scorch. Of course the steam setting is invaluable when dealing with tough wrinkles but you do need to be aware of how close your fingers are to the iron as the steam puffs out and bingo you'll get burned. A spray bottle of water to spray heavy wrinkles will also help. A can of spray starch is good to use on blouses and shirts to give them a professional finish. Truly the time you invest reading up on the things I've mentioned will make the job much easier, you will be a better shopper, your clothes should last longer. Some polyester added with cotton is an ideal fabric for keeping it's looks and it is not uncomfortably hot. We had men's dress shirts that were no iron for a long time until some bozo came along and insisted that only natural cotton was truly comfortable. Ya then we got a bunch very cheap cotton clothing flooding the market at high prices. There is refined cotton that is also quite wrinkle free but I don't see it much and it may be used in only very expensive shirts. You will be really proud of yourself when you learn the steps to a good iron job and your garment looks great when finished. You can actually get yourself to ironing a shirt in a minute or less. Good luck.