House-elves and laundry

[blenberry]

No: HPFGUIDX 33580

I searched for previous discussion of this but didn't find it.

In CoS, George says "Yeah, Mum's always wishing we had a house-elf to 
do the ironing..."  In GoF, Moody/Crouch mentions that he "called the 
elf to the staffroom to collect some robes for cleaning."  Now, if 
freeing an elf can happen as inadvertently (on Malfoy's part) as it 
did to Dobby, how can elves do any of these jobs handling clothes?  I 
thought one had to be careful not to pass them even a sock.

Barbara 
(who is hoping someone has a really good explanation)