Sunday, March 28, 2010

Clean Sole(plate)

I love the Iron.
I love to fuse stuff with my iron.  I love fusible interfacing, vusible fleece, fusible vinyl. 
 I like to experiment with fusing plastic bags together.
You know those little Pearler beads...
My kids love them.
I have melted plastic-y things everywhere. (They make great fridge magnets.)
We use...and abuse our poor little $10 iron.

Needless to say, I spend many hours trying to scrape the gunk off of the iron so that I can press anything else.

I found a new (to me) method for getting the soleplate clean.  And it is super simple too.
1. Heat your iron to Cotton.
2. Put a paper towel on the edge of your ironing board.
3. Lay an unused dryer sheet on top of the paper towel.
4. Press the iron on top of the dryer sheet.
5. Repeat until the gunk is gone.

This has saved the white dress shirts in my home.
Anyone else have a cool method?




11 comments:

Bonny said...

I've been waiting for this post for over a year now.

Barb said...

We have those little plastic things too. Keeps the kids busy for hours. I haven't gotten any plastic bits on my iron yet. Still have the parchment sheets that come with the dots. Sure helps.

Wilma Lee said...

I've used the dryer sheet method a lot. Works well.

Robin (RsIslandCrafts) said...

I haven't used the dryer sheet method. Mostly because we don't use dryer sheets lol. I do the same thing though, I just use a piece of scrap white cotton.

Amy said...

Seriously!!!! That's it! Next time I get my iron out I am sooooo going to try this! My iron is a bit gunky...it doesn't seem to come off on anything but I always worry that it will.

It's A Wonderful said...

The dryer sheets have always worked for me! I don't remember how I discovered it, but it works!

Janet said...

Can't wait to try it!!! I'm headed that way now.

Our Hands For Hope said...

Salt and a paper bag...but I'm pullin out the dryer sheets now.

Kathi D said...

I have heard about the dryer sheet trick, but when I tried it, it seemed to leave its own gunk. I wonder what I did wrong?

Kathi D said...

Meanwhile, I use the stuff that comes in a tube for cleaning the soleplate, with an old terry towel. I'm going to try salt and a paper bag, though. That cleaner stuff is expensive and not easy to find.

Anonymous said...

Most of the bead sets come with the iron paper you use on top of the beads so you don't get stuff on your iron. I forgot it once and had a mess. You can also buy the paper in the beads section. Use that and there's no need for other stuff to clean the iron. Or you can buy a little $20 mini iron for beads only.