Utility Sewing - Ironing Board Cover
Hello Friends,
After I cleaned up my sewing space, I had that one bin that was so full of fabrics it wouldn't close, remember? Well, down in the depths of that bin were two lengths of spongy boiled wool that I had bought on clearance to use as padding for a replacement ironing board cover. See, my old cover was just something I bought who knows how many years ago (before marriage? after?) and was not only ugly, but had these wrinkles that would transfer to my material particularly when I was fusing interfacing.
See those wrinkles? They were a pain - literally as well as figuratively. If I was pressing anything fine or detailed like a very narrow hem on a handkerchief, the wrinkles made channels for the steam to shoot out and burn my fingers! Yeeouch!
But now they are gone. Behold my new cover!
Granted, it isn't beautiful. The top is made from two layers of a pale pink duvet that was given to me by a friend. I kept hoping to find a cheap 100% cotton fabric with a large check to use for a cover, but this seems to be the holy grail of utilitarian fabric purchases. So, I ended up giving up the check in favour of cheap (free) cotton. And really, in the end, the check might have driven me crazy if it was pulled a little off-grain, so it's probably a good thing I went with the solid.
I have no great words of wisdom for you if you want to recover your own ironing board. There are only about a gajillion tutorials out there. My new cover has five layers of wool and two layers of cotton (it was quite thin). The cotton has double fold bias tape stitched on to the edge with elastic within. Here's a shot of the underside:
Part of my goal with this project was to use only materials I had on hand. So this means that my bias tape and elastic are quite narrow. The narrow elastic doesn't quite have as much oomph as a wider one might, so I pinned pieces of remnant elastic across the underside to hold it tighter. It works.
And the best thing is, the fabric bin can close with room to spare!
After I cleaned up my sewing space, I had that one bin that was so full of fabrics it wouldn't close, remember? Well, down in the depths of that bin were two lengths of spongy boiled wool that I had bought on clearance to use as padding for a replacement ironing board cover. See, my old cover was just something I bought who knows how many years ago (before marriage? after?) and was not only ugly, but had these wrinkles that would transfer to my material particularly when I was fusing interfacing.
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| I do NOT recommend the iron pictured for sewing. It has an automatic shutoff that is so sensitive, you can't fuse interfacing without the iron shutting off. It went right back to the store. |
See those wrinkles? They were a pain - literally as well as figuratively. If I was pressing anything fine or detailed like a very narrow hem on a handkerchief, the wrinkles made channels for the steam to shoot out and burn my fingers! Yeeouch!
But now they are gone. Behold my new cover!
Granted, it isn't beautiful. The top is made from two layers of a pale pink duvet that was given to me by a friend. I kept hoping to find a cheap 100% cotton fabric with a large check to use for a cover, but this seems to be the holy grail of utilitarian fabric purchases. So, I ended up giving up the check in favour of cheap (free) cotton. And really, in the end, the check might have driven me crazy if it was pulled a little off-grain, so it's probably a good thing I went with the solid.
I have no great words of wisdom for you if you want to recover your own ironing board. There are only about a gajillion tutorials out there. My new cover has five layers of wool and two layers of cotton (it was quite thin). The cotton has double fold bias tape stitched on to the edge with elastic within. Here's a shot of the underside:
Part of my goal with this project was to use only materials I had on hand. So this means that my bias tape and elastic are quite narrow. The narrow elastic doesn't quite have as much oomph as a wider one might, so I pinned pieces of remnant elastic across the underside to hold it tighter. It works.
And the best thing is, the fabric bin can close with room to spare!
Comments
I should go find some wool for padding, too. Thanks for the tip. :)