After using your steam iron shake out all remaining water out and then plug the iron back in to thoroughly dry out the inside. This prevents yellow iron spots on your clothes.
Using rain water is great to use in your steam iron as there are no chemicals in it to clog it up.
Tablecloths
After ironing a tablecloth that you won't be using for a time, try folding it lengthwise and placing it over a wire clothes hanger on which folded paper has been placed. Not even a touch-up will be needed even after several months.
Vinegar
Vinegar can be used to clean your steam iron, remove perspiration odors from your clothes, make permanent creases in your slacks or remove hemline marks from an altered garment.
Static
When ironing curtains avoid static by rubbing the ironing board with a clothes dryer static sheet.
Speeding Up Ironing
Place under your ironing board pad a strip of heavy-duty aluminum foil. The entire length should be covered. The heat will reflect through to the underside of the garment.
Starching your ironing board pad will make ironing easier and it will stay cleaner longer.
Embroidery
Lay the embroidery piece upside down on a turkish towel before ironing and all the little spaces between the embroidery will be smooth when you're finished.
Ironing Pleats
Paper clips will hold pleats in place and can be slipped on and off quickly and will leave no marks.
Heavily Starched Items
These items have a tendency to scorch so place the items between 2 sheets of aluminum foil. The iron will not stick and it will cut the ironing time in half.
Never Iron Sheers
Hang sheers over a clothesline and clip clothespins across the bottom of each curtain to weight them down and you won't have wrinkles.
After washing sheers with pleats, smooth the pleats in shape while wet and hold in place with a rust-proof bobby pin.
Starch Streaks
Adding a little liquid coffee to starch will prevent dark clothes from streaking when you starch them.
Scorch Marks
On a thin fabric such as cotton, place the garment on a white towel and pour on the mark a 50-50 mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water. Leave on for a few minutes and them blot with a clean towel.
Put a paste of powdered dishwasher detergent on the mark and then lay in the sun to bleach.
