How did the sewing community — especially all of us online — miss this?!

The game Monopoly has been on a campaign to eliminate one of it’s pieces and refresh it with something new. You’re hopefully familiar with Monopoly, which has the industrial-inspired playing pieces like a wheel barrow, a ragged boot, an old fashioned flat iron and a thimble.

Apparently a footwear maker and a garden tool manufacturer launched a campaign to keep the boot and wheel-barrow alive.

Where were the sewists when the Monopoly iron needed them? Thank goodness the thimble didn’t lose out, although apparently it’s “mainly played by females” and the second to last chosen token in a Monopoly game.

I’d start a campaign to bring back the iron, if it were not for these two things:

1) I hate ironing (aka, “pressing”). I think sewists are divided when it comes to the task. Some people love it, many of us hate it. Regardless, it’s an essential tool of the trade. I couldn’t quilt, make garments, bags, anything really, without an iron.

2) Now that the vote’s done and the iron is out, Hasbro is marketing a classic Monopoly game, saying “Buy now, before one token is gone forever.” Really, Hasbro? As a marketer by day, I have some respect for this ploy. But as a sewist at heart, this just irritates me. It a play on those of us who will miss the iron — who else but the textile industry?!

Fortunately, I have several old Monopoly games, plus it’s easy to find it at the thrift store.

So I’m not worried I’ll never see the iron playing piece again.

But are you?

Monopoly's marketing ploy

Oh, and the new token? It’s a cat.

~ Kristina