Pressing Matters

Houseguests are gone, I have a few more days off, so I am back in the blog saddle. I have lots to show and talk about, but I will try and break it up into manageable bites.
At the beginning of November, I promised a report on my new iron. It is has been weighing on my mind and I have been tripping over the box (not recycled to remind me to write this), so here it is finally!

TFQ is my iron monitor, mostly because she presses a boatload of fabric for me each time she comes to visit. Once again, it was time for a new iron, so we went out and bought one when she was visiting for PIQF. I defer to her knowledge since she is usually in the midst of pressing that boatload when my latest iron gives up the ghost. I am partial to irons I can replace relatively inexpensively at my local Target. I know some of you love your Rowentas and other high end pressing tools, but I haven’t heard enough consistently good things about them to spend the money. Change my mind!

This time I bought at Black & Decker Home Digital Advantage iron. So far, these are the things I like about it:

  • It lets me know when it is ready
  • It lets me know when it is going into auto-shutoff mode
  • Auto-shutoff is not so short a time that I get annoyed
  • When I turn the steam off it is really off
  • When the steam is on, I get a lot of steam
  • Filling the water reservoir does not require bodily contortions best performed by a Cirque du Soleil acrobat
  • The heat is hot; if you touch the soleplate, you burn the offending body part
  • The parts do not feel flimsy – the button for setting the temperature is solid, the dial for adjusting the steam doesn’t wiggle

All in all, I like it. I am still wondering if the iron switch is the culprit for my Pineapple woes. Unfortunately, I didn’t number the Pineapple blocks as I made them so I don’t know if the larger border blocks were made first or after I got the new iron. I really haven’t figured out a way to test the iron on this problem and friends think not, so the iron stays.

As an aside, take a look at Tacky Christmas Yards for a bit of Christmas cheer?!? And if you need any apron patterns (great for embellishing!), take a look at these over at TipNut.com. Marie D pointed them out to me and some are kind of fun.

Thanks for reading.

Author: Jaye

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.