Sad Irons

This pile of sad irons came from a recent auction. The picture doesn't begin to show how rusty they are. Usually, I just sell sad irons as is, but these ones were soooo rusty, I decided to paint them.

I left the fancier ones plain black, and painted some berry vines on the others.  I have a few more to paint, I may put stars on them.



I don't know if you can make it out in the photo or not, but the iron on the bottom right says in raised letters, "Asbestos Sad Iron". It had been so rusty, the letters were hard to see. The black paint brought them back to life.

Heavy, heavy, heavy! I have much respect for the women who had to use these. What a hard job ironing would have been in those days! The weight of the irons, the inevitable burns from accidently touching them, the heat from the fire that had to keep the next irons in line hot..........

I hate to iron the few clothes I have that need ironed. Most of my clothes are simply thrown in the dryer,  then hung up, no ironing needed. And even when I do have to iron, it's with a lightweight electric iron in an air conditioned house.

Yes, I think we have it very easy today compared to the hard working women who came before us!