Well, No Actually
If one has the motions down and the linen is at proper thickness, it should not wrinkle again, however much depends upon the design of the ironer and or length and width of the linens.
Remember the uber huge "king" and "super king" sized sheets one sees today weren't as common pre-1970's which is one small mercy, however by and large one had to fold linens into halves or thirds to fit the width of the ironer's roll.
With ironers that had two open ends, such as my Pfaff and the Ironrite one can open the sheet up and iron down the middle, then fold in half and iron the unironed portions. Given my Pfaff has a roller of about 34", this is an easy way to do twin, double and even king sheets. It works a treat for large table cloths as well. This method does not iron iron in creases.
With other ironers that had only one open end, or if one didn't mind creases, one irons either two ways:
Iron the selvage edges (both sides), then iron the fold making a crease (again both sides), and finally if one wishes fold sheet into quarters and feed through again, but only once. This makes a sheet folded into quarters length wise with four creases.
Or, one could simply fold the sheet into quarters or whatever size would fit under the roller and iron both sides this way. However this often results in "cat whiskers" as controlling several lenghts of folded material as it is being fed into the ironer can be difficult. Often what happens is the different layers get out of synce and one ends up with creases and fold marks where they shouldn't be.
Some of the first ironers sold for home use had huge rollers, much like commercial ironers. They were designed to iron large items of flatwork such as sheets either totally flat, or folded once. Obviously one needed quite a large space for such beasts, and they were often found in large estates or grand homes with either basements or large laundry rooms. Every now and then one finds such things on eBay or other sales. Often they come from old homes that have been purchased and the new owners find them in basements and so forth.
My small Ironrite has a roller of only about 17", which means even some pillow slips are too wide, and sheets are out of the question.
Have seen HUGE ironers in European homes, both modern and vintage that can easily do large sheets, and take up a good portion of the room. However such units run on 1 or sometimes 2 220v power, something easily found in say German homes, but not those in the United States.
Much as one loves one's ironers, can easily do large amounts of big flatwork on my ironing table, which is about 6'x3'.
Indeed many housewives gave up on their ironers as it was felt there was too much effort required for the results. Especially with models of the Ironrite and other ironers, with two different thigh controls required to operate. Just too much fiddling around to coordinate.
