ironing board
 

My ironing board is old. Thats probably because i inherited it from an elderly lady. The cover was in sad shape. So I figured I would replace it. Went shopping around but cringed at the $30 price tags. Figured for that price, I could try to make my own.

I had some old (10 yr old) fabric that was a heavier canvas type fabric and had no plans for it. I only had a yard so it wouldn't cover the whole board. I laid the fabric on the board and started trimming. Leaving about 4" all the way around. I took some of the larger leftovers and used it to cover the section of the board not covered by turning the stripes horizontal instead of vertical. After sewing the two pieces of fabric together and doing hospital corners on the ends and pinning, I sewed a seam all the way around. Then i sewed over the top of my hospital corners to give them stability. Then I took some elastic and sewed that along my seam.

That worked but it wasn't as tight as I wanted. I had leftover elastic and decided to sew it to the bottom to pull the cover tighter. I found three spots that wouldn't interfere with slipping the cover on and sewed on three more pieces of elastic.

I tried it on again and only the middle wasn't as tight as I'd like, so I took a piece of elastic and used safety pins to pin a spot in the middle that couldn't be sewn on. It turned out pretty darn good considering that I didn't have a clue to what I was doing.

Took me maybe 30 minutes to whip it up. Definately worth the time and much cheaper than the store bought ones. I spent $3 for the elastic.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...pski2ejmbp.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...pss1tvicya.jpg

Great job - making something work! It looks good.

I didn't want to lose all of that lovely storage you lose with a normal ironing board so I made a board to sit on two of the larger Sterilite cabinets. 8 drawers to fill with fabric. YIPPEE!!

Looks great to me!

I have one of those old wooden ironing boards...I sometimes will use it for display at craft shows, so don't want something that needs to stay in place. I have one of those portable ironing blankets that I safety pinned so it fits right.

You did a great job on yours!

And it is lovely. Love the opposing stripes.

Looks good!

great job

Great job, looks great

You did a very nice job. Looks very nice. Looks like a good sturdy cover too. It feels good doesn't it to make something so usable again.

great job.

Kudos to a great solution! Nice tribute to historic quilter's making use of what one has, and making do!

Looking good.

Great way to use up older fabrics and elastic. I cringe at the prices they want for covers too. I found some suspender type things to tighten up the cover from under neath similar to what you did with the elastic. Had them once upon a time but couldn't find them when I moved so started looking for them again. I think I found them online......probably at Nancy's Notion or Annie's Catalog. They come in a set of 3 in different lengths so you can position them in 3 locations where necessary. Sure keeps my cover where it belongs for me.

What a great idea and prettier than most of the store bought!

I have two houses and two ironing boards. At the one house is a wooden ironing board that my parents received as a wedding present in 1938. The other house has a heavy metal ironing board that I found at a thrift shop that given the design is most likely from the 1950's. Both of those ironing boards are longer than the covers you can find today so when the time comes that they need to be recovered I will need to make my own cover. The pad on the one I got at the thrift store is an old wool blanket.

I read somewhere - think it was on Quilting Board - that someone used a canvas drop cloth they had gotten at someplace like Harbor Freight to cover an ironing board. Not as pretty as yours but certainly economical.

Thanks for sharing your picture and handiwork!

I have made covers for mine too, but I sew a channel all around, then feed thru a selvedge strip, pull til taut, then tie.....

Good thinking and good use of stash materials. Reminds me to recover my ironing board.

Yeah for you. I think it looks great and hope it serves you for a very long time. Thanks for sharing.

I would think the plain canvas drop cloth could have lines/squares etc added on with permanent pen to square up blocks. I have a rectangle pre-printed one with the lines on and love that part for ironing/pressing.

Quilters need to save money for more fabric, good job on the pretty cover. You can use the lines to make sure things are pressed straight.

It looks great. I recently made one using some pre-quilted fabric

Looks great to me, I pulled a twin sheet over mine until I could make a new one.

You did a great job on the ironing board cover. You can't be the price either. LOL...

I'm proud of you - it looks great. You are thrifty and inventive.

It looks great.

I cringed when I bought an ironing board cover because it cost $30.00. One month later it was tatters because I iron clothing and press as I quilt. I took it back to the store and they refunded my money. I came home and made one of canvas fabric I had. I have used it for almost a year now and there is not a mark on it. The one thing I did differently than you did was to use wide bias tape as a casing around the edge and run a cord through it and tied it snugly as the back end of the board. That gathered up all the excess fullness. Cost-virtually nothing since I had all the components on hand. Nothing like "Made at Home".

nice job!!!

It looks great! :thumbup:

Oh wow! Thanks everyone. It makes me happy each time I look at it and know I did that. So far, its held up pretty darn good and I know if I need to wash it, that it easily pops off. Cant beat homemade and customed to me. :)

Absolutely very pretty ! Need to recover my ironing board as well as my small one too !

Love your cover!! Great job.

i had an old cover that I recently replaced (not as ingenious as you), and when I took it off, I was surprised that I had never noticed it had a ribbon sewn on one side, and a loop on the other. The ribbon ran through the loop, with a piece of velcro attached at the appropriate places, to hold the cover taunt. Sounds like you found a fix, but if it doesn't work, you might try that little trick.

I like it!

I did a similar thing; I press fabric in the living room and the ironing board was a real eyesore and my fibro/arthritis were getting worse so standing was becoming more difficult. So I took 2 nightstands from my "grands" room, bought a piece of melamine covered helving and covered it with some canvas like striped fabric that looks much better than an ironing board. I ue a dining room chair to sit at it and press away.

It's also handy when the grands are here. The laptop sits on top of it and we can easily monitor what they are doing on the internet.

I bought one of the old wooden ironing boards at Good Will. DH decided it had an asbestos batting inside the cover and insisted that it be thrown out. I think he was right about the asbestos, too. The cover looked like it had never been used, which would explain how it lasted so many years.

Since I've done my share of 'insisting' about stuff and he has complied, I allowed him to put it in the trash.

Well done....very practical and really quite attractive.

If it is 100% cotton canvas! it will shrink tighter on the board if you spray with water. I have made a large board to go on top of my board and I spritzed it several times after I stapled it to make the fabric tighter. I also made a slide on pillow case type cove that I can take off and wash. When it gets yuckie, I whip a new one up out of inexpensive muslin...keeps the original board looking nice.

Call me cheap in Wpg/Manitoba.. Went to a guild workshop, borrowed quild iron, ironed sparkly fabric and damaged the iron, and the ironing board was worn out, they removed and I shadowed behind took out of garbage the foam backing and traced the top.. Now my ironing board has foam patting, which it never had when bought it.. Never had such nice board. El Cheapo..

Great job! This is my next project ,too! Love how you "made " it work ! :)