Any Dopers use the FlipFold?

[Rhythmdvl]

We have a slightly dysfunctional folding house. Perhaps it’s something in the local water. Mrs. Devil and I can fold well enough to get by but whenever there’s a slight breeze or a cat playing two stories down our general folding ability tanks. To make matters worse, our nanny and housekeeper does a wonderful job in other areas but can’t fold without comical results.

Enter the FlipFold. Too good to be true? Too much work for too little payoff? To get things nice and tidy and not in need of drironing between wears would be fabulous. But a useless $20 gadget that takes more to use and only performs as well as it should with a freshly starched and ironed shirt isn’t worth the excess hydrocarbons.

Any Dopers use one? Any have experience with similar gadgets?

[UFC Is Sux]

I'd love to try one of these but never could - Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory totally ruined it for me.

[beowulff]

Originally Posted by UFC Is Sux

I'd love to try one of these but never could - Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory totally ruined it for me.

Here you go.

[Dog80]

Japanese t-shirt fording

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5AWQ5aBjgE

[TriPolar]

When it's functioning properly, how small does your house fold up to?

[Maus Magill]

I've considered picking up one of these. Fang, my oldest, is getting to the age where he needs to assist with the laundry, however, he cannot fold worth shit.

[Pixel_Dent]

Originally Posted by Dog80

Japanese t-shirt fording

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5AWQ5aBjgE

Same method in english. I'll be damned it actually works...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAxhr0j0thY

[Dewey Finn]

Originally Posted by Pixel_Dent

Same method in english. I'll be damned it actually works...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAxhr0j0thY

It's a little easier to understand this method with the English instructions. And there's another video linked from there that shows a homemade version of the FlipFold made from a cardboard box.

My apartment has a walk-in closet big enough that I just hang the t-shirts in the closet, but I'll still try this method.

[elbows]

Folding's just not that hard. I'm not getting it.

One of my favorite nit piks is that sitcoms often have scenes where someone is folding laundry. Think 'Two and a Half Men', or 'The Big Bang Theory'. If you notice, these actresses can't even fold towels. What the hell?

Yeah, yeah, they're probably not doing their own laundry, but come on, it's folding. Towels usually. You can teach a small child to fold clothing.

My advice to the OP is; apply yourself, focus, emulate others around you. I'm absolutely certain you can do it.

[Rhythmdvl]

Originally Posted by elbows

Folding's just not that hard. I'm not getting it.

I think a major part of it is that folding falls wayyyyyy down on the priority list. As in clearing off a suitable flat space is sometimes just a bit too much. And as I said in the OP, Mrs. Devil and I can fold well enough (house t-shirts are one thing, but fancy-shmancy drawer clothes do get a bit more time and attention), but we've gone through a succession of housekeepers and nannys who just can't do it--we're not getting it either.

So enter the FlipFold. I've done the Japanese/Chinese thing before, but it's not the panacea we're looking for. Plus, retraining a housekeeper to fold--and then retraining--isn't great employee management (to us). The house is beyond spotless in other respects, so we'd rather nag in this minor direction. It's kind of like telling our gardener that the bulbs weren't planted in perfectly straight lines or pestering the caretaker that he missed a spot when cutting the grass. Hey, we have bulbs planted, grass cut, and shirts folded without having to do it ourselves, and the issues aren't that major. Have a mint julep.

Lacking feedback we'll probably just go ahead and order one to try. If it's anything out of the ordinary I'll probably post back.

[Dewey Finn]

What are "fancy-shmancy drawer clothes?"

[Rhythmdvl]

Oh, sorry.

Fancy-shmancy is basically an article of clothing that costs over fifty or a hundred bucks or so (or looks like it should).

Clothing that goes in a drawer are 'drawer clothes' (as opposed to clothing that we wear while drawing, those are sketchers. Oh, wait...).

[Phèdre nó Delaunay]

I have one and I really like it. My husband travels a lot and he wouldn't be without it when he has to fold his own shirts. (Often though, its easier for him to just us a dry cleaners.) I think it was definitely worthwhile and makes folding a lot easier and faster.

[Fish Cheer]

I had one for years, and it's great. I can fold towels by myself, but I could never match the FlipFold's precision with tees and dress shirts.

[RTFirefly]

Anything I fold, rather than put on a hanger, doesn't need to be folded that precisely. I fold my t-shirts so they take up less room in the drawer, and so if I'm looking for a particular one I can find it easily. But they don't need to look like they're ready to pass a footlocker inspection in basic training.

So for my purposes, I can't see the point of this. Half the time involved in folding a t-shirt is laying it flat, and this gizmo isn't going to help with that. After that, it's four flips in as many seconds, and I'm on to the next shirt.

However, if I had the OP's housekeeper, I'd probably get one for her to use. For twenty bucks, what the hell do you have to lose?

[elfkin477]

Originally Posted by elbows

Folding's just not that hard. I'm not getting it.

I don't get it either. Folding a shirt manually takes half the time it takes the woman in the video to do it with her contraption.

I suggest the OP's family take a job in a department store, in the clothing department, for a week or so. You'll be able to fold that neatly without any gadgets for the rest of your lives.

That Japanese method looks ridiculously complicated, at least for clumsy people. Use this woman's method (tee shirts are at 2:22 but the whole video is full of proper folding methods), and even an uncoordinated kid should be successful.

[Cyberhwk]

Have one!

Love it. I always sucked at folding shirts. They always came out uneven and didn't stack neatly. So I bought one about a year ago. Then when it broke I bought another one.

You do have to find a flat space big enough to lay the thing flat, but it's a piece of cake other than that.

[Dr. Righteous]

Originally Posted by elfkin477

I suggest the OP's family take a job in a department store, in the clothing department, for a week or so. You'll be able to fold that neatly without any gadgets for the rest of your lives.

Oh so true.

I worked in a department store part time in college, and now I fold like a champ. After all these years my husband is better than he once was, but still not great at it. I learned to do it while holding the shirt up in the air because we often didn't have a flat surface to use on the sales floor... it's tough to explain the mechanics of it, but you use your pinkies to flip the arms of the shirt inward to the back.

[Snickers]

You can do much the same thing with a properly sized board. Yeah, it doesn't have the hinged wing things, but same principle. When I worked for a clothing store in college, that's what we had, just a simple board (almost exactly the same as a clipboard, minus the clip, with a handle cutout on top). It was marked with different lines depending on what you were folding so that it came out right, but worked a treat. Probably cheaper, too.

[Greg Charles]

I had one, and I thought it worked well for me. It was more effort for me than regular folding is for people that have any skill. Somehow I lost it during a move, but in the meantime I have married a woman that is good and at folding so I let her take of it. Yes, this could be construed as sexist, but I prefer to think that our skill sets in this particular instance, and by mere coincidence, happen to fall along traditional lines.

[Lanzy]

neat, but I never fold anything. Either hanger or toss in drawer as is.