the Panasonic 360 Freestyle Cordless iron – a review

I’ve been asked several times to review products on my blog. I almost always say no. And in fact, I almost said no to this one as well, except for the fact that I am actually in the market for a new iron, so it seemed a very good time to review this new iron from Panasonic.

I’m embarrassed to show you this photo (oi! look at that ironing board!), but this is the iron I’ve been using since I started sewing. It was an iron Morgan had before we met. It served my needs, though it’s become a bit temperamental, and often leaks dirty water on my ironing board, as you can see above.

One year Morgan bought me a new iron, but I didn’t have much better luck with that one – despite being new, it still leaked water all over my quilt blocks. I went back to the old one, since at least with that one I kind of knew when it was prone to leak. Funny what you put up with, right?

I was excited to try out this new iron mainly because of its cordless feature. I like to leave my iron out, but with Max on the move (and extremely interested in cords!) I was spending a lot of time keeping him away from the oh so tempting cord. With this iron, the base has a retractable cord, which means I can keep it plugged in behind the ironing board and there’s no cord dragging on the ground to tempt Max.

Of course, even if you don’t have little ones around your legs, not having a cord is surprisingly nice. No more stepping on cords, or getting a cord stuck around the ironing board or a large piece of fabric.

Now that I’ve been using this iron for about a week, I can tell you my honest opinion of it. First, I love how cute it is! I mean, just look at it. I didn’t think I’d ever call an iron cute, but this one sure is. It’s a great size, and it feels really nice in my hand when ironing. It glides so smoothly over fabrics with that nice shiny soleplate. I love the cordless aspect, as I already mentioned. The downside with the cordless feature is that you do need to have a place to set the base. I only have a small ironing board, so with the base on the board, my ironing space has been reduced. This isn’t a big problem when ironing quilt blocks, but makes it a bit difficult when trying to iron larger pieces of fabric. I plan on setting up a little something next to my ironing board for the base.

It comes with this cute cover turning it into the perfect iron for those who travel with their irons. I don’t, but I like how easily you can snap on the cover and put the iron away.

So enough about its appearance… how does it actually iron? This weekend I used it while making these quilt blocks. I press all my seams open, and am accustomed to using steam. It seems to me that this iron is not as hot as my previous iron without the use of steam. This is a pro and a con for me – I like that it’s not so hot because now I’m not singeing my fingers when I open the seams, but I do wish that it was a bit hotter to flatten those seams better. The steam helped, but it still didn’t seem quite as hot as I was used to with my old iron. Those (like my brother) who are very particular about getting every wrinkle out, might find this iron isn’t quite hot enough.

Oh, and lastly, I was so happy to read that this iron has an anti-leak feature. I certainly won’t miss having an iron that drips and dribbles its water all over my projects! These quilt blocks were all pressed with this iron, and I’m very happy with how flat and smooth they are.

So to recap, overall I’m very pleased with this iron. It has lots of great features that I appreciate, and most importantly, it feels really good in my hand. The price, at $99, is a little higher than I’d want to spend on an iron, but I think it’s worth it for something that improves this job. After having used it, I can honestly say that if I were in the market for an iron, I would buy this one again without a second thought. The only con for me is the heat. I’m used to a hotter iron, and I wish this one was just a bit hotter.

If you’re in the market for an iron, you may want to give this one a try! You can buy one here, and for the next couple days, until 12/21, you can take $20 off & receive free shipping with coupon code FREESTYLEQUILTER (case sensitive).
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Please note that this iron was provided to me by the kind folks at Panasonic. My opinions are my own and are based on my experience using this iron for the past week.