Wednesday, September 5, 2012

My New Ironing Board

September 5 2012,

I don't know anybody who gets excited about an ironing board except for sewers and quilters.

My old rickety ironing board final gave up. The wood finally broke and is no longer straight. It was time for a new one.

Old ironing board

Instead of buying a small ironing board, we (I encouraged hubby into helping) decided to make one. I went on youTube and found an easy tutorial. You can find it here.

We kind of followed the steps that were given, but changed a few things around. Instead of buying flooring underlayment, we bought a MDF board which was smooth on the both sides. You can find these boards in your big box hardware store. If you are going to buy any type of wood, make sure there are no cracks and that the board is not warp. ** Update: 10.22.2012 Here is the link to the actual board that I bought -> link.

Once you have picked out your board, give it to someone who works there and have them cut it to your measurements.

Smooth MDF Board

Pick a fabric that you like, this one has been sitting for at least 7 years in the closet.

Fabric for ironing board

The youTube video said to use towels, but we opted for felt. Make sure the felt does not say "Flammable". If it does, find some other type of felt. The one we bought was called "Premium Felt", whatever that means.


Next sew your felt and fabric to the size of your board on three sides, make sure that you give enough give and add in seam allowances so that you can put the board through. It's like making a pillow case. Note that your fabric might not be enough for the board, so you may have to add additional pieces to make the fabric wider or longer. Just press open the seams where there are seams.

In an hour and a half, I made myself two ironing boards. One is for the actual ironing station, and the other is where I put my iron on when I am not using.

The nice thing about this is that you can make it any size you want, instead of buying something that kind of suit your needs. And also, this board is a square board, which allows you to maximize the ironing area.


Quilt & Bitch

2 comments:

p00lriah said...

the lady in the vid is kinda scary.

mdf boards can be pretty heavy. what thickness is it?

Quilt+Bitch said...

The mdf board is 1/4 inch think. The 1/2 inch think mdf boards was too heavy, so we opted for the smaller one. :)