Man irons his face

From the Archives of all things Ironing - Ironing in the News

We've heard of Life imitating Art, Well, here is a story where Life imitates a Joke so much so it is hard to believe.

The joke goes something like this -

A man arrives at the emergency presenting with ear burns. The doctor says "How did you burn that ear ?" The man answers that the phone rang and he put the iron to his ear to answer it. "So how did you burn the other ear ?" says the doctor. "Calling for an ambulance" answered the man.

Published by Mail Online UK,  Metro UK and news.com.au, the story is about Tomas Paczkowski who was determined to show his other half he was able to juggle several jobs at once when he accidentally ironed his face after mistaking it for the telephone.

Thomas irons his face and then gets a black eye from running into a door.

Mr Paczkowski from Elbag, Poland - wanted to show his wife Lila that he was a dab hand at chores around the home.

He said: 'I decided to do the ironing while she was out at work, just to prove a point.

'She always complained at me for not doing the housework so I thought I would do the ironing to save her a job and prove to her that I'm not as useless around the house as she thinks.

'Women are always going on about multi-tasking, so I set up the iron, opened a beer and put the boxing on the telly,' he added.

'It all started out well and I was beginning to think it wasn't that difficult at all. I put up the ironing board in front of the television and started ironing my shirts. The first few went ok.

But Tomasz, 32, added: 'Trouble was, I then got so involved in the boxing that I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing. 

'So when the phone rang I picked up the iron by mistake

and pressed it to my ear.

'I really don't know how I could make such a silly mistake. But I guess it proves men are not able to multitask as well as many women can.

'My wife always watches the soaps when she does the ironing and never has any problems.'

But Tomas added insult to injury when he sprinted to put cold water on the burn - and ran straight into the bathroom door.
'That gave me a black eye so now I look more like I've been in a boxing match instead of just watching one,' he added.

'The pain was incredible. It has also been quite embarrassing to tell everyone how the accident happened, but most people have been very understanding but many of my friends find the whole thing very funny.

'I really don't know how it happened. I was just so engrossed in the television.'

Doctors say he will make a full recovery from the burns - but Tomasz says he's off housework for ever.

'It's harder than it looks. I really respect what my wife does now.'

12 12 12

12th of the 12th of the 12th. To many, today is a significant date. The beginning of the end, a time for renewal, of spiritual awakening. To some, just another date.

At Osca, this day marks a very exciting moment, for we have received the first delivery of an Ironing table ordered directly from the manufacturer in England. No longer dependent on the available choice and stock in Melbourne, finding the right table for our future Franchisees and confirming supply is a significant step as another component of the Osca Ironing Franchise Development is put in place.

To celebrate the day, 12 inspirational quotes from 12 inspirational people.

Steve Jobs

an American entrepreneur, founder of Apple

 

"We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent.

Because this is Our Life.

 

Life is brief and then you die you know?

 

And we've all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damned good. It better be worth it." 

 

 

Spryte Loriano

the founder of the Manifest Foundation

 

“Every great story on the planet happened when someone decided not to give up,

but kept going no matter what.”

 

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

an American essayist, lecturer, and poet

 

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."

 

Barak Obama

president of the United States of America

 

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

We are the change that we seek.”

 

 

Oscar Wilde

an Irish writer and poet

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

 

 

Christopher Columbus

an explorer and navigator

 

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.“

 

 

Jonathan Swift
an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist

“May you live all the days of your life.”

 

 

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
an Indian politician and statesman

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure.

There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”

 

 

Nicholas Sparks
an American writer and novelist - Author of The Notebook

“We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn.

It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence.

It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy.

It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other

can sit without speaking.

This is the great paradox.”

 

 

Rick Riordan
an American author best known for writing the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series

 

“Humans see what they want to see.”

 

 

Wayne W. Dwyer
an American self-help author and motivational speaker.

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”

 

 

Eckhart Tolle

german born, canadian author of The Power of Now

“You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold.

That is how important you are!”

History of ironing boards

From the Archives of All things Ironing - History of the Ironing board.

The earliest known ironing boards were used by the Vikings in the 9th century.

 

Glass Smoother and Whalebone Ironing Board

Whale meat, blubber, and bones were rare and valuable North Atlantic resources. The refined lady of the house who owned this item would have used it, along with the weight made of imported glass, to smooth her linen.

Far from being the unkempt barbarians of popular imagination, Vikings were extremely fastidious for their time.

Later, in Europe, it became common for people to iron their clothes on the kitchen table, or on a flat piece of board resting between two chairs.  This practice spread to North America and by the early 19th century there was plenty of advice in housekeeping books about what size an ironing table should be, what it should be made of, and what sort of blanket or cloth it should be covered with.

About the same time, several ironing boards started appearing on the market but there is some controversy over who actually invented the ironing board.

 

Vandenburg & Harvey Patent

Vandenburg & Harvey Patent

 

 

On the 16th of February 1858, W.Vandenburg and J.Harvey patented an ironing table that facilitated pressing sleeves and pant legs.



About three years later Isaac Ronnie Bord of Georgetown, Delaware, took out a patent for an adjustable flat horizontal surface for the pressing of undergarments, garments and bed linen.

 

S A Mort Patent

Miss S A Mort obtained a patent for the first truly folding ironing board in 1866.The invention also included a removable press board used for sleeves.

 

Sarah Boone Ironing board

In 1892 Sarah Boone obtained a patent in the United States for improvements to the ironing board, the forerunner of the modern folding ironing board with a narrow, curved shape, designed to make it easy to iron shirts.


 

Manufacturers quickly caught on to the notion of offering ironing boards ready-made by the late nineteenth century. By about 1898, the ironing board came equipped with legs that could be taken down and enabled the board to be set up anywhere. These early manufactured ironing boards were of wood that was supposed to resist warping although they still warped.

 

Wooden Ironing board

This wooden ironing board was made by S. J. Bailey, Inc. in Peru, Indiana, for Sears Roebuck & Co. 

 

New improvements arrived with the use of iron and soon ironing boards had metal-top boards. However, despite painting, the tables still buckled under the heat of the iron. The J. R. Clark Company of Minneapolis began using mesh which permitted steam to escape and prevent buckling and rusting.

Ironing board diagram.

By 1940, all-metal collapsible ironing boards with tubular legs became common. The basic design of the home ironing board has changed little since then.

 

While researching this article, I learned that there is a new ironing board that has won the 2012 Australian International Design Awards. The Hills Orbit ironing board. According to the Hills website,  the new ironing board is full of world first innovations, the Orbit takes the hassle out of housework. 

Hills Orbit

Remarkably similar in construction to the 1940 (72 year old) model wouldn't you say? Although to be fair, there are some nifty ideas and obviously the designers have gone to great length to incorporate many innovative features not found on the average domestic ironing table.

Hills Orbit

As hand ironing moves from the domestic to the commercial environment, the evolution continues.

Magpie ironing table

This ironing table has a temperature regulated heating element incorporated into the table top and a foot operated fan assisted vacuum to draw the steam away from an ironed garment.

Veit Varioline

Weighing in at over 130 kg, the Veit Varioline boasts a suction and blowing table, an iron rest, swivelarm with a sleever and even its own lighting system.

Sources

Smithsonian

about inventors

google patents

oldandinteresting

google image search

hills