I'm back, and much more coherent this time (I hope).

For those of you got lost in my last post, I'll give you a quick run-down:

I got a job from my priest to divide an altar cloth in half last week. But I have to be careful, because the ends have to be matched a certain way.



It had been on a side altar table for quite a bit. This poor little linen cloth looked like it hadn't been washed in....well, let's just say, it's been a while.

It had soot stains, water stains, and a few others stains that I have no idea what they were. The cloth, which like I mentioned before, should have been white. But with so many stains on it, it looked a little on the yellow side.

Needless to say, it needed to be washed. BADLY.

This is about the best "before" picture I've got.

So, after dumping about a quarter of a bottle of stain remover on it, it got dumped into the washing machine.



After the washer finished with it, I set up the ironing board and heated up the iron to the highest setting. Linen is a rather stiff cloth, despite the fact that it wrinkles faster than I can say Jack Robinson. Grabbing the wet cloth, I then proceeded to iron out all the wrinkles that the washer put into the cloth.

Yes, you read that right.

I'll tell you a big secret of the trade ladies:

If you ever have to iron a linen tablecloth or you ever iron church linens yourself....

Iron it while it's wet. And keep ironing it until it's dry. 

Believe it or not, a priest taught me that trick when he taught me how the altar linens should be ironed. He learned to do it that way in seminary, in case anyone was wondering. And yes, priests are taught to iron linens in seminary. Cause SOMEBODY's gotta teach the ladies the correct way....

Believe me, if you iron it while it's wet, or at least damp, the wrinkles come out SO MUCH EASIER. And you don't have to mess with putting a gazillion gallons of water in that teensy-weesy water tank. Ironing linen takes a lot of steam to do, so why not have it practically ready made?

So much ironing....

I think it took me only 2 hours to iron this cloth completely (it was very long, twice my arm span). If I had dried it in the dryer, I guarantee you I would have been there for 3 times that long. And the ironing job would not have lasted that long - maybe a half hour. After ironing it dry, it still hasn't wrinkled. And for anyone that has worked with linen, you know that it only takes a weird look to make it wrinkle. No joke.

Because this cloth was so long, it had to drape on the ground.  So, to protect it from the dirty floor, I put a towel down to catch it.

Now that this cloth is clean and smooth again, I can get started with the actual sewing part! Stay tuned for part 3!!

Old-fashionably yours,

Catherine