My grandmother did the "dampen and chill" method for ironing the cotton muslin curtains in our house. She made them for every room, including the mile-a-minute crochet lace to go on them. After she got too old to do it, my mother took up the tradition. Me, I barely have curtains at all, and the ones I do are not the ironing kind.
I always thought they did it because they couldn't get to the whole stack of curtains at once, so putting them in the refrigerator kept any chance of mildewing from happening. (We didn't have AC at that time) That, and having the fabric uniformly damp was faster and easier than refilling the water reservoir on the iron all the time. Just now, I found this on the web- <begin> This is quoted from the book Laundry by Robert Doyle- he founded the wardrobe dept of a live theater and also was one of the first instructors at Costume Studies at Dalhousie University. He gives the reason for chilling the fabrics. "after drying, garments to be ironed are best sprinkled with warm water to dampen them thoroughly, then each garment rolled up into a tight ball, placing each into a plastic bag and into the refrigerator for a couple of hours so that the items are thoroughly dampened and chilled. .... then with a dry iron, set at the cotton setting, proceed to iron out the wrinkles ... the dampened and chilled garments will iron more efficiently since the iron glides effortlessly over the chilled fabric." He also writes that heavier irons work better than lightweight ones and that a dry iron with a mist bottle works better than a steam iron. This is on cotton and linen fabrics. <end> So, still no date or "ah ha" moment, but one can deduce that the practice must have started sometime after refrigerators became common household appliances. It would not have been mentioned in a book in 1894 because people were still using actual ice boxes at that time, which really weren't big enough to toss in sheets and such! At least that's my theory, YMMV. :D (Interesting info on the history of refrigerators, here: http://www.history.com/exhibits/modern/fridge.html) ::Linda:: -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Penny Ladnier Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 1:20 AM I am wondering where the cooling the linen before ironing originated. Some of you mentioned that your mothers taught you to do this. It makes me wonder if this method was something that was passed down through the generations. I checked in my 1894 Cole's Dictionary of Dry Goods and cooling the linen is not mentioned. Penny Ladnier, _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
