Question about the laundry (kitchen, work, selling)

[American girl]

As I was wrangling with the iron and a pesky pair of slacks this morning I thought of my mother. When we were little she had these metal forms that she poked down into the legs of my father's Dickie work pants before she hung them on the line. After they were down in the legs she adjusted them outward so that the fabic was stretched out tightly around the forms. All this presumably to eliminate the need to iron the pants. Of course she ironed them anyway because she ironed everything we wore, including underwear. Does anyone else remember these?

[Northern Maine Land Man]

I believe these went out around the time they stopped selling curtain stretchers. Lace curtains were hand washed, carefully rinsed and set out on the lawn on curtain stretchers to dry, one curtain at a time. This was done spring and fall of each year.

(About 98% of our readers are going, "Huh?" Knowledge of such things comes with the hair color; white.)

[starwalker]

LOL NMLM I got what she was talking about too! and they can STILL be found, you just have to know where to look (http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=1144 - broken link)!

[American girl]

Originally Posted by starwalker

LOL NMLM I got what she was talking about too! and they can STILL be found, you just have to know where to look (http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=1144 - broken link)!

That's them! Gawd I can't believe it. That is just too much fun.

And my hair IS NOT white But it might be without L'oreal #41.

[msina]

My DH remembers helping his Mother with the curtains on the stretchers. He told me he used to get "picked" by the "pins", one time his Mother go upset because he got blood on the curtains and she had to start over.
Thanks for the link Star, lots of memories there.

[deerislesmile]

Originally Posted by starwalker

LOL NMLM I got what she was talking about too! and they can STILL be found, you just have to know where to look (http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=1144 - broken link)!

I LOVE Lehman's Non-Electric! (Another good source is Vermont Country Store, but Lehman's seems much more authentic when is comes to "old-fashioned" goods..)

[alittlenerdy]

I like to put the waist of my jeans over a kitchen chair overnight. Does that count as a fabric stretcher?

[Elcarim]

My mom used to have a wooden apparatus that you slid into the waste of a pair of jeans and you twisted a little knob to expand it. She called that a jean stretcher.

[Submariner]

I saw them a few days ago in the Lehman's catalog.

[mainebrokerman]

Originally Posted by American girl

As I was wrangling with the iron and a pesky pair of slacks this morning I thought of my mother. When we were little she had these metal forms that she poked down into the legs of my father's Dickie work pants before she hung them on the line. After they were down in the legs she adjusted them outward so that the fabic was stretched out tightly around the forms. All this presumably to eliminate the need to iron the pants. Of course she ironed them anyway because she ironed everything we wore, including underwear. Does anyone else remember these?

my mother use to use these metal contraptions...