Grody.
Every 7-8 years, I have to re-cover my ironing board because it gets too stained, torn, or just plain worn out. The last time, I did it with muslin, and it wore through or tore in some areas. I had to set my iron on a trivet because it wore through the muslin and made holes in the last cover. This re-make is LONG overdue.
This time I chose a sturdier fabric -- this 2-yard cut from Walmart feels more like a canvas or a utility home dec. fabric. I think this will work well. I've never gone for a patterned fabric on the ironing board -- I guess I wanted to make sure the dyes in my fabrics didn't run or bleed, and that is easier to see on "natural" muslin. Hopefully, this will wear better than the muslin.
I laid it out on the weaving room floor so I could easily mark out the 5 inches around the perimeter of the board. On the one end, my mom had written "Michele from Mom 2006." It's nice to see her handwriting again after all this time ...
One of her quilting buddies did carpentry as a family business, and one year they made Big Boards for quilters. Another year, they made light boxes for tracing designs. My mom and Aunt Rosita bought 3; 1 for each of us. It has served me well through the years! Very solid!
It fits over a regular/traditional ironing board, but extends the surface to this nice big rectangle, so I have a bigger work surface.
Here it is all done and in use.
I also use it as a cutting board -- hence the green cutting matts piled up at the top edge. It is so nice to have it cleared off and to be able to use the full surface. I had one end of it piled up with crap -- I'll have to go through that and pitch it or find other places for that junk. I want to keep the space for it's intended use now!
Here's a quick video tutorial from Man Sewing about how to recover an ironing board.
Basically, the instructions say to cut the new fabric about 5 inches larger on all sides than the top of your ironing board.
Make a single row of stitching to secure the raw edge, then fold it over again and stitch another line around the edge to make a casing for the parachute cording. It doesn't have to be pretty or neat. Just gett 'er done.
Parachute cord and a cord lock to cinch it up. Ta da!
Here's another video from Beyond Fabric with a little more detail. She uses elastic instead of parachute cord, and shows how to make a new pad underneath, too.
1 comment:
Some envy here - I've always wanted a big board but pricey enough that I put it off. It would be so much better to have a rectangle to press on when ironing fabric after washing and of course, quilt tops. I did buy an ironing mat that could be used over a board - heat reflecting material on the underside and a grid with measurements on the top side. The only problem with those printed measurements is they often get skewed with use. I used it on my work table for awhile but it was just too cumbersome there and would slide around since it wasn't slipped onto anything.
Looks like a good choice of fabric for the recovering, although that print would be a bit distracting for me. An easy fix to a nagging problem - beautiful!
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