When I was a foreign exchange student with my host family, they told me I could help out with the ironing. “But I don’t know how to iron!” I protested. “Then you can start with Handtücher and work your way up,” my host mom told me. Handtowels, I thought, they iron handtowels?
And this is how they did it:
First, you lay out the handtowel, inside up (the seam is sewed onto this side, on your ironing board:
Then you iron that side.
Once you’re done, fold the towel in half lengthwise. Iron one side, including the fold, then turn it over and iron the other.
Fold it in half again. Iron one side, then iron the other.
Ta da! You’re done. Now you have the perfectly folded handtowel, which will look absolutely beautiful hanging in your kitchen. At least until anyone uses it.
It should be noted not *all* Germans iron their towels or even iron them this way. The family I know in Berlin don’t iron anything they don’t have to because the wife/mother hates ironing. My host mom likes wearing ironed clothes and ironed towels are easier to fold, she says. So she irons them. I usually don’t, except when I’m stressed, avoiding work I don’t want to do, or otherwise bored, or want to write a blog post about it.
German, Finnish and Chickens 