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Cleaning Up:  Using a clothesline  |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
 Posted - Jun 10 2005 : 06:35:27 AM
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CLare - I do have wooden racks (like MJF advocates) and have used them for years for towels and small items. I dry them in the house. I also dry things on hangers using hooks on guest room closet doors. The AC blows on them there and they dry quickly. Still miss that fresh air smell. Sometimes, when my hubby comes in from outside, his clothes will smell that way, and I immediately feel this wonderful feeling. I always tell him "You smell like the outdoors!
Heartland girl |
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Eileen
True Blue Farmgirl
1199 Posts
Eileen
USA
1199 Posts |
Posted - Jun 10 2005 : 12:33:20 PM
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Clare,
I learned this fact while in business with Ecoquest. Clothes dryers are not the only producers of positive ions in our homes so keeping a balance of more negative ions to positive ions in our modern homes is very difficult without the help of something that purposefully produces them. There is an illness associated with too many positive ions called Posi-ion fever. It is often blamed for erratic behavior patterns and increase in anger and violence during the chinook winds or the santa annas or the fones, all winds that come in pushing positive ions ahead of them and pushing out the negative healthy ions. Water action and wind and trees give off negative ions, that is why we feel so good to be near those water sounds like a river or the ocean. It is part of what makes line dried clothes smell so good, that plus the ozone. There is abook titled " The Ion Effect" full of information on posi-ion poisoning and how to correct the situation in our homes. All electrical appliances in our homes add to this problem. TV is another big culprit.
Great info Clare. Thanks
Eileen
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
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Mumof3
True Blue Farmgirl
3890 Posts
Karin
Ellenwood
GA
USA
3890 Posts |
Posted - Jun 10 2005 : 1:45:24 PM
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I have to jump on the clothesline bandwagon! There is nothing better than the smell of clothes dried in a soft breeze and sunshine. Convincing my family of that,however, is another story. Too stiff, too crunchy...the list goes on. Our dryer broke last January and we had to dry our clothes on wooden racks and a line outside. I was in heaven. The rest of my family produced enough "negative ions" to counteract any that my dryer has emitted over the past few years!
One day I hope they appreciate the gift of being able to use the things from nature. Until then, I hang out the sheets and blankets, throwing caution to the wind. I'm such a rebel.
Karin |
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MBurns
True Blue Farmgirl
1798 Posts
Marlene
Swisher
IA
USA
1798 Posts |
Posted - Jun 13 2005 : 3:10:16 PM
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Hi from Iowa, My mom had a wringer washer as we grew up and always hung out laundry and ironed. I still like to hang out occasionally. Sheets and towels have a great smell. I did not know there was a method. I think as kids we just hung up clothes to help mom. I dislike ironing as it is way to time consuming for working fulltime. I think as working women we have lost some of the great ways of doing things like hanging out laundry and cooking from scratch. I wish I had more time to indulge.
My mom loved doing these things and resisted modern conveniences for a long time. She knew the value of doing things the old way. |
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therusticcottage
True Blue Farmgirl
4439 Posts
Kay
Vancouver
WA
USA
4439 Posts |
Posted - Jun 21 2005 : 11:52:27 PM
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It is so good to know that there are others out there like me that actually love the ritual of doing laundry. I think I inherited it from helping my grandmother! She had a wringer washer and would let me swirl the clothes in the rinse tubs. I also got to catch the clothes as they came out of the wringer. Then we would carry the basket outside, wipe the line with a damp rag, and start hanging. It was so much fun hiding among the sheets as they dried!
If I had room for a wringer washer I'd use one for my laundry but unfortunately my laundry room is not big enough. They are so much more efficient, use less water, and you can get the laundry done all in one day!
I was telling my 11 year old that I am putting up a clothesline. She looked at me like I was nuts!! Then I started telling her all the fun things a clothesline is good for besides drying clothes -- hanging a blanket across the line, putting rocks on the edges of the blanket to hold it to the ground and you have an instant tent. Hang a blanket over the line and you have a "curtain" for a stage and you can have plays, talents shows, etc. After I mentioned these ideas she decided a clothesline might be fun!
Kay
Proud Member of Farmgirls of North Clark County |
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Mollie
True Blue Farmgirl
88 Posts
88 Posts |
Posted - Jun 22 2005 : 05:59:13 AM
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| I have lived over the last 40 yrs in some of the fanciest suburbs and the FIRST homeowner association rule is NO clotheslines. I guess they think it is "low class" to hang out laundry. I am a clothes line freak (love to hang out my clothes on the line). When we buy our acreage soon, the FIRST thing I'm doing is putting up a clothesline. Yet these same people who are offended by clotheslines have all that orange plastic climbing/play equipment, trampolines, huge plastic playhouses for the kids but that's okay. Sorry for my rant but I LOVE my clothesline. Some of my happiest memories is racing out to the clothesline with my mother and grandmother to get the dry clothes in before it starts to rain. Mollie |
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countrymamma
True Blue Farmgirl
78 Posts
Rural Manitoba
Canada
78 Posts |
Posted - Jun 22 2005 : 07:12:39 AM
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I too love doing laundry and always try to do it on Mondays. I don't own a dryer and haven't for years. I use the outside clothesline in the summer and in the winter I have old wooden clothesracks.
There is nothing quite like seeing laundry hanging outside on the clothesline.
Great thread!!
~Carol |
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Mollie
True Blue Farmgirl
88 Posts
88 Posts |
Posted - Jun 24 2005 : 08:48:43 AM
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| I know it sounds crazy but I "like" to iron. I like the crisp pressed look of the clothes. I like the way they hang in the closet like they are proud to be there instead of hoping someone will close the door quickly. BUT, it is Friday and still doing my ironing, not sure why I am sooo slow this week. Sometimes I wish I could just rip the clothes off my family and leave them nekkid so I could say I had "everything" washed and ironed for the week. I must come from a family of crazy folks who love ironing. In fact, my MIL has an old "iron-rite" from the 1940's. It is in good condition and I have told her how much I like it. It is perfect for tablecloths, draperies or large items. She uses it for the church dinner tablecloths and other church hangings. I have to tell you that I really like the "spray starch", I have burned too many fingers helping mother cook starch on the stove or dipping clothes in it. Daddy was in the fields all day but he LOVED heavy starched clothes. Mother would starch his light blue work shirts and overalls til they could stand by themselves and then iron them. I remember when I first dated my husband that he said he loved the way my mother ironed her clothes (odd, isn't it?). He also liked her iron because it was old and extremely heavy and he thought it really pressed the wrinkles out, I still have that iron but use my new Rowenta. Mother showed me how to pin lots of layers on the ironing board and how to iron a shirt in the correct way. Then we entered the "perma-press" age and I didn't iron forever, but now back to it and enjoy the pleasure it gives me although my kids think it's crazy. I remember my best friend's mother ironing in her dining room listening to Elvis Presley sing on the radio, "Love Me Tender" when it first came out with tears running down her cheeks. Mollie |
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sleepless reader
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
CA
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Jun 24 2005 : 4:14:27 PM
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Mollie, my friend was just telling me the other day about a thing his mom had for pressing sheets and table linnens that they called a "mangler" because if your fingers got stuck, they would be mangled! Could this be the same as your "iron-rite"? I iron everyday because I have way too many clothes in too small a space!
Sharon |
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Mollie
True Blue Farmgirl
88 Posts
88 Posts |
Posted - Jun 24 2005 : 6:13:21 PM
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Oh yes, it's nickname is a "mangle". The Oxford English Dictionary defines a "Mangle" as a device that uses rollers for pressing or extracting water from clothes. It gives the origin of the word as Dutch, mangelstok. When my MIL got her ironrite, it was set to balk at four layers of denim. I suspect that folks who were suspicious of the machines preferred the old word "Mangle" rather than "Ironer." Herman A. Sperlich used the dreaded "M" word, "Mangle" in his 1928 patent for the original Iron Rite. This was probably before he got a Public Relations Department. Ironrite, Inc. was founded in 1911 by Herman A. Sperlich and J. Herman Uhlig in Detroit, Michigan. The automatic ironer, also called a mangle, was an electric appliance that used a roller and a cast-iron shoe to press clothing. Company brochures promised homemakers that an Ironrite ironer could take them away from the "nerve-racking method of lifting, pushing and pulling a heavy, hot hand iron back and forth hundreds of times to complete an ironing." A popular home appliance in the era before permanent-press clothing, the Ironrite could be found in many home laundry rooms.
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therusticcottage
True Blue Farmgirl
4439 Posts
Kay
Vancouver
WA
USA
4439 Posts |
Posted - Jun 25 2005 : 10:52:24 AM
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Mollie -- manglers are coming back into their own for pressing sheets, tablecloths, etc. My husband's grandmother had one and sole it when she sold her house. Boy I wish I had it! In fact, people around here will pay big dollars for a vintage one. I know that they are still being made but, as usual, the new ones don't quite measure up to the old ones.
I priced a new wringer washer -- almost $700!!! And it has all these safety features built in that don't make it work as well as the old ones. So now I'm on the hunt for a wringer washer. My laundry room is not outfitted for one but if I could find one I could use it outside under the carport in the warm weather!!
Clotheslines -- it just gripes me when I hear of homeowner's association not allowing clotheslines!! When I had my house they didn't want us to have one either but I put one up in my fenced backyard. I love to see clothes hanging on a line and blowing in the wind. It does not look trashy. Only looks trashy if people leave them hanging for days!!
Kay
Proud Member of Farmgirls of North Clark County |
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bubblesnz
True Blue Farmgirl
291 Posts
helen
New Zealand
291 Posts |
Posted - Jun 25 2005 : 11:32:10 PM
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| Wow, things are very different here in New Zealand. Everyone has a clothes line. We use a dryer only for convenince, lots of rainy days,sick kiids, or needing an article washed and dryed in hurry. Alot of people do not even own dryers. When I was younger, women were judged on their housekeeping skills by how white their babies nappies were (hanging on the line) If they were are greyish colour, housewife was considered, lazy or dirty. There are few nappies on the lines now, due to all the mums using disposables. WE were also taught to hang the underwear on the inside of the clothes line, so the neighbours etc couldn't see them. And never to hang washing upside down. eg,Pictures on teatowels etc. |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Jun 25 2005 : 11:50:39 PM
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I remember fondly hanging my oldest son's (27 and 25 now) diapers on the line. I got some looks, but didn't care. I refused to use disposables. They were only only two "homemade" kids. The others were all adopted later ...past diaper age..I would have done it still.
I love to hang all the kidsl little jeans in a row on the line...just looks so fun.
Jenny in Utah
The best things in life arn't things! |
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MeadowLark
True Blue Farmgirl
2206 Posts
USA
2206 Posts |
Posted - Jun 26 2005 : 08:04:32 AM
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Aunt Jenny, I loved seeing something similar on my line...little overalls and big overalls! At one time when my youngest was a toddler all she liked to wear were her little overalls, then my oldest grade schooler daughter had a pair, I had a pair and so did DH! Looked pretty funny all of them hanging on the line...like a family of bears.
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. http://www.xs4all.nl/~josvg/cits/sb/sb101.html |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Jun 26 2005 : 10:25:10 PM
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That happens here sometimes..I wear overalls about half the time and oldest daugher has two pair. Younger daughter and husband too, but they don't wear them as much. My kids are so close in age that it is funny to see the line of jeans going up from size 6 to 12 and then the adult ones...I love that too!!
Jenny in Utah
The best things in life arn't things! |
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beachaubergine
Farmgirl in Training
10 Posts
cape cod
MA
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - Jul 08 2005 : 07:10:44 AM
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just found this clothesline topic and i am trying to get mine up real soon! While looking for a nice design on the internet for wooden post clothesline, I came across a site devoted to having the right to hang your laundry out/side. What a shock, thousands of "communities" across the country refuse to let people hang their clothes out to dry.
Alas, my mother always hung our stuff on the line when it was nice out, she grew up that way too, thinking of the great memories and a rural life (even though she was in the city!). We had a retractable line since we didn't have a large yard. I think she grew up with one of the metal diamond spinner shaped ones.
She told me recently one of my childhood friends once called our clothesline a "ghetto line". And my father, who grew up poor and whose mum even put the clothes outside to dry (even when they froze) always hated the line too!
Still, it wasn't until recently that I started using an indoor wooden drying rack, for some reason we never had those growing up! |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
Posted - Jul 08 2005 : 07:49:01 AM
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To this day I use clorox, and it all came from the fact that my mom did not want any "grey" wash hanging on her line. All our sheets, towels, and undies were bright white. And I still keep ours that way, too. Clorox is also my friend in the bathtub and sink and even on my porch banister and swing outside (as we have a lot of mold problems here).
Mom would wipe down the line with a damp cloth before she hung the clothes to wipe any dirt from it before it could get on the laundry. I still remember so vividly watching my mother as she reached up to hang clothes. She had it down to a science and could hang a load in no time.
Bubbles - it is so interesting to hear about life in New Zealand. I have never been there, but so much can be learned by sharing everyday activities.
jpbluesky
Heartland girl |
Edited by - jpbluesky on Jul 08 2005 07:55:52 AM |
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beachaubergine
Farmgirl in Training
10 Posts
cape cod
MA
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - Jul 08 2005 : 08:23:38 AM
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| I just bought some of the clotheslines with the little spring that you can spread apart. I really like the look of the more old fashioned-y ones with the knobby top though, they just didn't look like they would give in the middle if you had a really fluffy towel or jeans? does anyone use those and do they just split in half? |
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beachaubergine
Farmgirl in Training
10 Posts
cape cod
MA
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - Jul 08 2005 : 08:26:39 AM
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| oops I meant clothes PINS! |
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ArmyWifey
True Blue Farmgirl
712 Posts
Holly
Abilene
KS
712 Posts |
Posted - Jul 08 2005 : 2:34:54 PM
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I'd like to use one but on Ft. Irwin it's discouraged. Like we all don't do laundry? And HELLO we are in the Mojave desert clothes dry in like 15-30 minutes on a hot day!
I'm probably going to get a nice wooden dryer from Gaiam and use it in the garage.
There's just something special about hanging out clothes.
Holly
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As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!
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Rosemary
True Blue Farmgirl
1825 Posts
Virginia
USA
1825 Posts |
Posted - Jul 21 2005 : 10:46:21 AM
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Even though I share Clare's ambivalence toward them, I put in one of those square, spin-around clotheslines this spring in an area of the yard behind our old farmhouse.
Hanging out laundry provides a wonderful time to meditate, listen to country sounds, smell the country smells, feel the breeze in my hair, and build a bridge backward in time to the women who worked our farm in ages past.
I liked the old-fashioned way of managing laundry so much that I've now taken to using a glass washboard to do some of my laundry (clothing with stains requiring extra effort) outdoors, in an old galvinized washtub.
Sometimes, I give line-dried laundry a few minutes in the propane-powered dryer just to smooth it out and make it softer. I noticed that someone else does this step *before* hanging things up to dry. Have to give that a try.
I dry everything inside-out if there's danger of fading or other wear from sun exposure. Jeans and the like go on the line waist-end-up so they dry faster, inside-out to expose the pockets. Other clothes go upside-down, to prevent clothespin marks on the shoulders. (Thanks to the farmgirl who recommended pinning shirts at their side seams; I'd forgotten that trick.)
Hanging up sheets and towels gives me a chance to police them in good light for those clingy little fuzz balls that are the bane of anyone with indoor cats.
I set my wicker laundry basket down on a small farm bench so I don't have to keep bending over to pull out the next thing to hang up. When I'm done, I take the bench over next to an Adirondack chair under a nearby shade tree, to serve as a place to set my lemonade for a well-deserved break from chores.
Last night, I received my order of the lavender-scented soap powder and fabric softener sold by Lehman's (wow, were they fast!) and look forward to trying it. Smells heavenly!
Rosemary
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Old City Girl
Farmgirl at Heart
1 Posts
Pat
Boston
MA
1 Posts |
Posted - Jul 25 2005 : 10:41:52 PM
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I accidentally came upon this Farmgirl Connection while trying to find directions for making a clothespin bag. I wanted to share my experience with hanging out wash in the middle of a city where for the most part people use dryers. For many years I lived in an apartment building with a coin operated laundry. Washing clothes was always a great expense, up to $3.00 per load when I moved out a year ago. Laundry was just a tiresome chore and we always needed to find quarters for those machines.
I recently moved to a three family house where I am able to have my own washing machine in the very dingy old basement. I decided to save even more money by not buying a dryer at all. I often do my wash late at night when I arrive home from work. I can hear the last train pulling into the nearby train yard at about 12:30 AM while I am hanging out my clothes. I have done this throughout the cold Boston winter. If the weather is just too wet or freezing to hang out clothes, I hang them indoors using radiators to dry my jeans. There is something about hanging out wash that makes me feel happy. And as for saving money, it is supposed to cost 3 cents a load using cold water and a clothesline. |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Jul 25 2005 : 11:23:45 PM
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Welcome Pat!! I am glad you found us! Did you make the clothespin bag yet??
Even in the boonies, in a small town like this...if someone stops by and I am hanging out clothes they ALWAYS with out fail say "oh no...is your dryer broken?" I always just smile and say "no I like doing it this way". It makes me happy too. I don't really understand people who don't enjoy it.. Anyway, welcome!!
Jenny in Utah
The best things in life arn't things! |
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KarenP
True Blue Farmgirl
666 Posts
Karen
Chippewa Falls
Wisconsin
USA
666 Posts |
Posted - Jul 26 2005 : 03:31:08 AM
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Rosemary,
I too enjoy hanging clothes out on the line.
The dryer trick before you hang out is something my mother used to do all the time.
I don't do it all the time, but towels and jeans are alot softer when I do.
KarenP
"Purest Spring Water in the World" |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
Posted - Jul 26 2005 : 04:52:21 AM
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Pat - your comment about hearing the 12:30 am train as you hang clothes out to dry really struck me. It made me think of the variety of sounds women hear while they are hanging laundry. Sounds of the breezy countryside in the morning, sounds of the night in a big city.....from one end of the spectrum to the other, hanging clothes has an emotional impact on the senses as well as a physical impact. I love that visual image of you outside in the dark of winter listening to the night sounds of Boston and silently hanging clothes. Thanks for sharing!
jpbluesky
Heartland girl |
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Cleaning Up: Using a clothesline |
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Using a clothesline
