Well, I went to my grandmother’s house today. You must know that my grandmother is legally blind. She has a condition called macular degeneration, in which case, basically, she has lost her central vision completely and only sees through her peripheral (and even the peripheral is very poor). Although she will tell you within the first 3 minutes that she meets you that she is indeed blind, you almost wouldn’t know it. For example, last year for Christmas, she made quilts out of old blue jeans for all of the grandchildren. Now, two or three grandchildren would be impressive right? I mean, this woman is legally blind! No, she gave a grand total of 9 quilts between September and December! And only one of them had she started before August! (She just finished up one she had started and set down a long time ago for me….a king size!) Anyways, that is just a little bit of background on my grandmother, just to let you know a little bit of who we are dealing with! I love her to death, so you will hear much more about her as time goes by.
Anyhow, one day I was over at her house, and we were working on these quilts for Christmas (by the way, I only made one in the time that she made these nine!). So, we’re cutting and sewing, and we get to the ironing part of the process, where you press the hems to make your work look all nice and neat. Well, her iron was probably the gunkiest iron I’ve seen in quite some time, and it smelled up the whole house! When I asked her about it, she just said Oh yeah, that this is a little rough.
Oh my!
The very next day, much to my surprise, on the Today show (which I love by the way…so many interesting stories on that show! Al Roker always makes me laugh!) they did a segment on cost efficient ways to clean your appliances and make them last longer. And what do you think was one of the items they highlighted? The iron, of course! I was so thrilled, I called gra’ma and told her that we could clean her iron with some baking soda and water! Yay!
Here’s those instructions:
Mix equal parts baking soda and water into a paste-like substance. Smear it over the face of the iron, let stand for a minute, and then wipe it off. Fill the water chamber 1/3 full with distilled water, and turn the iron to steam. On an old towel, iron until all of the water in the chamber has steamed out. If there is any remaining gunk, repeat the last step.
I’ll let you know how it turns out when we try it later! Any of you have ideas or suggestions?
