I could sense my iron was on the fritz when the digital temp guide wouldn't stop blinking, indicating that it was still heating up. Unfortunately, my cottons never got very crisp in the past month or two.
Recently I noticed that whenever I pushed the button to select the next temp level the once loud 'BEEP' was now a feeble, barely noticeable 'beep'. At first I thought my hearing was going bad ('oh for the love of gawd!' I thought), but then I came to my senses and realized my iron was nearing its death. And at the worst possible moment. I was in the midst of making a quilt as a gift for my close friend's first born! A quilt requires many seams. A quilt requires much pressing. A quilt requires high temps to get those seams pressed open!
I lugged out my vintage GE iron that I scored for $5 at an estate sale a year ago. I didn't know at that the time whether it worked, but for $5 I figured it would at the very least be an inexpensive decoration. I found out soon after that it did work (with a slight smell of something burning!). However I didn't use it much after that first test, because hello, burning smell. don't want to burn the whole house down.
But I was desperate for an iron. Thankfully the burning smell eventually dissipated and I was left with a sturdy, heavy hunk of metal that heated up quick and stayed hot! It got me through the quilt and some lightweight blouse making. And then one day. Poof. The heat disappeared and I was left with a cold iron.
Around this time I saw Heather Lou of Closet Case Files write about needing a new iron. I saw either on my blog feed or instagram that another fellow sewist was without iron too. I read through all of the comments on Heather Lou's post hoping to find a consensus on what iron to buy. However, despite a resounding love of gravity feeds, which I am not in the market for, there was so much variety in the reviews of irons. It's a similar scenario on other review sites (Amazon, BBB, Target, etc.).
Funny enough, one iron that has a ton of reviews and a fairly high average on Amazon is the exact iron that felled me: the Black and Decker Digital Advantage. I never thought it was that amazing, but then I remembered that I bought it sometime before September 2008. (I was still living in Long Beach when I bought it and I moved out of LB in 9/2008). For simplicity's sake Let's say I bought it in 2007. That sucker lasted almost 8 years. I don't know what the median age is for irons in the modern era, but I think anything over 5 and close to 10 is pretty good. Sure, I couldn't put any water in it the last year of its life or else risk leaking water everywhere. But since I wasn't trying to win any ironing awards I did without any steam function and resorted to a separate spray bottle to get out tough wrinkles.
I've been putting off buying a new iron for about a week or two. But as any sewist knows, you need an iron! I finally sucked it up and went to Target during my lunch break this week. Target doesn't have a big selection of irons in-store so my decision was already halfway made at that point. Thankfully my cell service was working pretty well to help me find some reviews. The online reviews (from Amazon) of the three Black and Decker models offered in-store were terrible. A couple Shark models were available, but I couldn't find many reviews so I passed on those. There were three Rowenta models and, while Rowenta seems to be a love it or hate it brand, I decided to buy the most expensive one, the DW8061. I don't have any good reason for why I put down the $50 model and grabbed the more expensive one. I guess I'm just hoping that more money means better product.....*fingers crossed!*
90 bucks later (ugh!) and I'm the proud owner of a new iron. I partially regret not buying the cheaper model, but I'm going to submit this purchase into the Citi Price Rewind program (with which my husband has had good success) and see if the price goes down low enough to get some sort of refund.
I have no idea how this iron will work. I really just want something with steam (I really have missed this function) and an iron that will have reliable temperature, especially a setting hot enough to get my cottons and linens crisp! If I remember, I'll do a proper review of this iron in 6-12 months once I've had adequate time to discover any nuances.
What iron do you have? Are there any brands that you absolutely love or stay away from?
Recently I noticed that whenever I pushed the button to select the next temp level the once loud 'BEEP' was now a feeble, barely noticeable 'beep'. At first I thought my hearing was going bad ('oh for the love of gawd!' I thought), but then I came to my senses and realized my iron was nearing its death. And at the worst possible moment. I was in the midst of making a quilt as a gift for my close friend's first born! A quilt requires many seams. A quilt requires much pressing. A quilt requires high temps to get those seams pressed open!
I lugged out my vintage GE iron that I scored for $5 at an estate sale a year ago. I didn't know at that the time whether it worked, but for $5 I figured it would at the very least be an inexpensive decoration. I found out soon after that it did work (with a slight smell of something burning!). However I didn't use it much after that first test, because hello, burning smell. don't want to burn the whole house down.
But I was desperate for an iron. Thankfully the burning smell eventually dissipated and I was left with a sturdy, heavy hunk of metal that heated up quick and stayed hot! It got me through the quilt and some lightweight blouse making. And then one day. Poof. The heat disappeared and I was left with a cold iron.
Around this time I saw Heather Lou of Closet Case Files write about needing a new iron. I saw either on my blog feed or instagram that another fellow sewist was without iron too. I read through all of the comments on Heather Lou's post hoping to find a consensus on what iron to buy. However, despite a resounding love of gravity feeds, which I am not in the market for, there was so much variety in the reviews of irons. It's a similar scenario on other review sites (Amazon, BBB, Target, etc.).
Funny enough, one iron that has a ton of reviews and a fairly high average on Amazon is the exact iron that felled me: the Black and Decker Digital Advantage. I never thought it was that amazing, but then I remembered that I bought it sometime before September 2008. (I was still living in Long Beach when I bought it and I moved out of LB in 9/2008). For simplicity's sake Let's say I bought it in 2007. That sucker lasted almost 8 years. I don't know what the median age is for irons in the modern era, but I think anything over 5 and close to 10 is pretty good. Sure, I couldn't put any water in it the last year of its life or else risk leaking water everywhere. But since I wasn't trying to win any ironing awards I did without any steam function and resorted to a separate spray bottle to get out tough wrinkles.
90 bucks later (ugh!) and I'm the proud owner of a new iron. I partially regret not buying the cheaper model, but I'm going to submit this purchase into the Citi Price Rewind program (with which my husband has had good success) and see if the price goes down low enough to get some sort of refund.
I have no idea how this iron will work. I really just want something with steam (I really have missed this function) and an iron that will have reliable temperature, especially a setting hot enough to get my cottons and linens crisp! If I remember, I'll do a proper review of this iron in 6-12 months once I've had adequate time to discover any nuances.
What iron do you have? Are there any brands that you absolutely love or stay away from?
I have a Rowenta too. I got it maybe two years ago, and it's holding up well, except the built in spray function stopped working. I was using just regular tap water in it, and it started spitting brown junk all over my projects, so I cleaned it and switched to bottled distilled water only. Since then it's stayed clean and puts out good steam (I think it helps when the steam holes are getting blocked up by mineral deposits from the tap water).
ReplyDeleteYay! I'm glad you have a Rowenta AND like it! I'm totally confused over tap water vs distilled water. I could have sworn my B&D iron manual said to use distilled water, but I was lazy in the early days of owning it and used tap water. Then it developed those mineral deposits and I remember trying to dig them out with a needle. Once I switched to distilled water, then I didn't have any problems. (However Liz (at zilredloh) bought the iron several yrs ago and said the manual said to use tap water, so I dunno maybe she had a newer model...)
DeleteThe Rowenta I just bought says to use regular tap water because apparently it has an "anti-calc" system. My area has very hard water, so we'll see how well the anti-calc thing works. The manual also says to empty the water tank after each use, which I rarely did with my last iron, so I'm going to try and be a better iron owner this time around and follow the directions. :)