How to iron a sheet with an elastic band: 6 best ways

With the advent of sheets with an elas­tic band, the life of house­wives was divid­ed into “before” and “after”. The beds began to look per­fect, like a stretched drum. But what is behind this beau­ty and how to achieve the per­fect smooth­ness of the sheets, now let’s fig­ure it out.

If you are read­ing this arti­cle, it means that you, like many oth­ers, are wor­ried about the issue of iron­ing sheets with an elas­tic band.

Features of a sheet with an elastic band

If we look at this type of tex­tile, we will see a wide can­vas, pulled togeth­er at the edges. Some­times the rub­ber band is sewn around the entire perime­ter, and some­times only in the cor­ners.

This is where the rub is. Gath­ered edges are the hard­est to smooth out. To cope with this task, you need at least one more hand.

Type of fabric and ironing temperature

Anoth­er impor­tant fea­ture of stretch sheets is the com­po­si­tion of the fab­ric. Despite the spe­cial appear­ance, stretch sheets, like any oth­er, are sewn from well-known mate­ri­als. It could be:

1. cot­ton (nat­ur­al or with the addi­tion of syn­thet­ic fibers);

2. linen (nat­ur­al and blend­ed with the addi­tion of arti­fi­cial threads);

3. silk (nat­ur­al and syn­thet­ic);

4. poly­cot­ton (fab­ric based on arti­fi­cial fibers);

5. vis­cose (a nat­ur­al fab­ric made from fibers obtained by arti­fi­cial means);

6. microfiber (syn­thet­ic fab­ric);

7. bam­boo (fiber from the bam­boo stem, arti­fi­cial­ly syn­the­sized).

The com­po­si­tion of the fab­ric dic­tates the para­me­ters of the per­mit­ted impact on tex­tiles. In addi­tion to the cor­rect wash­ing modes, you need to choose a cer­tain iron­ing tem­per­a­ture. If your laun­dry does not have a care label, please refer to the fol­low­ing table.

Fab­ric struc­ture	Iron­ing tem­per­a­ture, degrees Cel­sius
cot­ton	140–200
linen	200–230
silk	30–50
poly­cot­ton	fifty
vis­cose	80–100
microfiber	60
bam­boo	110

When observ­ing the tem­per­a­ture regime, do not for­get that some fab­rics should be ironed only from the inside out. This applies to silk and mate­ri­als con­tain­ing syn­thet­ics. Nat­ur­al fab­rics can be ironed on either side.

Why you need to iron bed linen

Pro­po­nents of iron­ing jus­ti­fy their posi­tion by the fact that heat treat­ment destroys bac­te­ria and linen mites. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the facts prove that these microor­gan­isms inhab­it not only linen, but the entire pas­tel.

But the argu­ments that it is more pleas­ant to sleep on ironed linen and it is more con­ve­nient to put it in a clos­et are much more con­vinc­ing.

Under the influ­ence of tem­per­a­ture and pres­sure of the iron, the threads are smoothed out, and the microvil­li of the fab­ric are laid hor­i­zon­tal­ly, which cre­ates a feel­ing of soft­ness and smooth­ness of the tex­tile. For the same rea­son, the fab­ric becomes less rigid and volu­mi­nous, which makes it pos­si­ble to stack it more com­pact­ly on the shelves.

Proper drying is the key to neat sheets

There are fam­i­lies where the clothes are not ironed, but they care­ful­ly approach the issue of dry­ing. The bot­tom line is to straight­en all the folds on a damp cloth. To do this, the linen is thor­ough­ly shak­en, hold­ing the cor­ners from 2 sides and then hung out in a straight­ened state. They take off the sheets, slight­ly dry, and fold them neat­ly, straight­en­ing the folds with the palm of your hand.

We do not rec­om­mend stor­ing damp laun­dry unless you have already become pro­fi­cient at rec­og­niz­ing the lev­el of resid­ual mois­ture that will not cause musty odor or mold growth.

But, if you decide to fol­low this method of stor­age, then, just in case, before send­ing it to the clos­et, walk along the sur­face of the fold­ed tex­tile rec­tan­gles with a hot iron.

Ironing methods

We will tell you a secret that those very places pulled togeth­er with an elas­tic band are usu­al­ly hid­den under the mat­tress. There­fore, you do not need to go to extremes and try to iron the hem of the sheet per­fect­ly.

But in cas­es where creas­es have formed dur­ing dry­ing or the fab­ric is prone to wrin­kling, use our rec­om­men­da­tions.

Iron and cushion

This method is suit­able for those who do not have an iron­ing board. The pil­low should have a cot­ton pil­low­case. The roller can be replaced with a rolled up large tow­el.

Sequenc­ing:

1. Iron the cen­ter of the sheet in the usu­al way.

2. Take the roller and pull the tight­ened part of the cor­ner onto it, first on one side, then on the oth­er. At the same time, treat the sur­face of the sheet with a steam iron.

3. If all edges are tied with elas­tic band, iron the entire perime­ter of the sheet in the described way.

Simple ironing on an ironing board

The round­ed end of the iron­ing board seems to be spe­cial­ly designed for the cor­ners that are pulled togeth­er with an elas­tic band. It is most con­ve­nient to process a sheet fold­ed four times. To fold it cor­rect­ly, fol­low the instruc­tions:

1. Turn the tex­tile right side towards you with the long part up.

2. Put your palms in the cor­ners.

3. Now con­nect the ends of the fin­gers of both hands and flip one cor­ner to the oth­er.

4. The bot­tom cor­ners are also nest­ed one inside the oth­er. The can­vas is now fold­ed in half.

5. Next, turn the sheet with the fold down, put your palms in the result­ing pock­ets and align them again as before.

6. Due to the tight­ness of the fab­ric, an angu­lar fold is formed with lapels on both sides.

7. Straight­en the fab­ric, lay­ing the result­ing folds, and pro­ceed to iron­ing.

How to iron:

1. Place the sheet on the iron­ing board with the flaps up.

2. The fold­ed rec­tan­gle con­sists of 2 pan­els. First fold back the top and iron the bot­tom lay­er with­out touch­ing the gath­er­ing area. Then return the top lay­er of fab­ric and iron it.

3. Turn the fab­ric flaps down and pull the fold­ed pock­ets over the round­ed edge of the iron­ing board. Iron the fab­ric.

4. Take the fold­ed sheet in your hands and turn all the cor­ners in the oppo­site direc­tion at the same time.

5. Place the fab­ric back on the iron­ing board and repeat the iron­ing pro­ce­dure.

From the result­ing posi­tion, it is very easy to fold the bed­ding for stor­age in the clos­et. It is enough to bend his can­vas in half, align­ing the long sides. Then fold in three more or roll into a roll.

Steam ironing

Most often, bed tex­tiles lend them­selves well to steam treat­ment. The creas­es are smoothed before the eyes. Let’s use this prop­er­ty to smooth out the cor­ner creas­es. You can fold the sheet 4 times by align­ing the cor­ners and tuck­ing them one into the oth­er.

Steam­ing pro­ce­dure:

1. Iron the fold­ed tex­tile in the mid­dle.

2. Hook the result­ing pock­et from the tight­ened cor­ners to the edge of the iron­ing board, stretch the elas­tic band with one hand, and steam along the edge with the oth­er hand. Turn the cor­ner pock­et inside out and work the oth­er side of the sheet.

3. Fold your linen for stor­age or put it on a mat­tress.

Mattress ironing

This method is suit­able for busy peo­ple. You can use a steam gen­er­a­tor or a steam iron. This method allows the use of under-dried sheets.

What should be done:

1. Put the sheet on the mat­tress in the usu­al way.

2. Steam all over the sheet, includ­ing the ends of the mat­tress.

3. Be care­ful with the dec­o­ra­tive mate­r­i­al of the bed base. It may lose its lus­ter when exposed to high tem­per­a­tures.

Wet smoothing

And this life hack can become your favorite. You do not need to iron in the usu­al way, it is enough to have a spray bot­tle with water or a spe­cial tool that you can do your­self.

So, hav­ing a very wrin­kled sheet with an elas­tic band, do this:

1. Pull the sheet over the mat­tress in the usu­al way.

2. Moist­en the entire sur­face with a spray bot­tle.

3. Wait 1 to 5 min­utes.

4. Smooth out any remain­ing wrin­kles with the palm of your hand.

5. Places where creas­es remain, treat again with water.

To make a soft­en­er for dry fab­rics, mix fab­ric soft­en­er and water in a ratio of 1:4. Mix the ingre­di­ents and pour the solu­tion into a spray bot­tle. After treat­ment with the spec­i­fied com­po­si­tion, the folds straight­en out, and the sur­face of the linen becomes fra­grant and pleas­ant to the touch, as after iron­ing.

Ironing damp sheets

And this method will blow the minds and cause bewil­der­ment of expe­ri­enced house­wives. But, this method has a place to be and works well. Let it be use­ful at least to bach­e­lors.

What should be done:

1. Put the bed­ding in the wash­ing machine and wash with a good spin.

2. If the max­i­mum lev­el of your machine is 800 rpm, do not remove the sheets and turn on 1 more spin cycle.

3. Remove the linen and imme­di­ate­ly put the sheet on the mat­tress. Of course, it is bet­ter not to do this before going to bed. The best time is morn­ing or lunch.

4. Smooth out wrin­kles with your palms and leave to dry.

5. Dry­ing, the fab­ric will stretch even more and you will get per­fect­ly even sheets.

Tak­ing into account the con­stant pres­sure of time, we have test­ed and offered you the fastest and most effec­tive meth­ods for smooth­ing stretch sheets. No one will reproach you for mis­man­age­ment, and the beau­ty of ironed linen