a steamy flash back...

 I do know how to iron clothes, I just avoid doing it whenever possible.  Happily most of the clothes I wear are knits of one sort or another which come out of the dryer ready to wear.  

When I was a youth my mother taught me to iron by first ironing pillow cases. From there I graduated to ironing dress shirts for my brothers and my father.  I actually found ironing to be one of my favorite chores (much nicer than weeding the garden) because I could watch TV while I ironed.  

Early in my first marriage my dear mother-in-law, who loved to iron, offered to iron all of my husband's work shirts - mostly the button up short sleeved kind with a breast pocket, in which resided a pocket protector and multiple pens. You get the picture.  After a few minutes of feeling guilty (I really should be ironing my own husband's shirts) I agreed that it would be a fine idea for her to iron those shirts and she did for several years. 

Now, as I said earlier, almost none of my or my current spouse's clothes require any ironing at all.  At least they didn't until I went shopping at Chico's, one of my favorite places, and found an ankle length light weight dress, light blue in color, that I though would be perfect for summer and for our trip to Egypt in the fall.  

The only problem was that I didn't read the care label before I bought the dress. Turns out it's linen, you know, that fabric that wrinkles when you look at it, definitely not wash and wear.

Today I had to iron it for the first time.  The directions on the dress label said to iron with a warm iron.  I decided to ignore that directive.  I set the iron to linen/cotton (the hottest setting) turned on the steam and ironed that dress (shades of my daddy's dress shirts).  I've been patting myself on the back all day.  It worked like a charm.  The dress looks smooth, no wrinkles.  Of course I haven't put it on yet.  Tomorrow will be the true test.  We're going out to dinner with friends. 

I know it will wrinkle just riding in the car but maybe no one will care.  Maybe they will simply be awed by the fact that I'm wearing a real linen dress, or by the fact that I still remember how to iron.