On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:29:06 -0500,
wrote:

I made my ironing-board cover of heavy unbleached cotton
duck. It takes pins very well.

Somewhere around here I've got a piece of canton flannel,
which is heavy cotton twill that's brushed on one side. (I
used to throw it over a couple of blankets on an old table
when I ironed yardage.) When the current cover wears out,
I'll use the canton flannel to make the new one -- if I
still remember that I've got it; the cover I made with the
other half of that piece of duck lasted at least ten years
-- and DH no longer wears white shirts!

I cut the cover the size of the top, plus the thickness of
the board and a seam allowance all around, rounded the
corners, then sewed on a strip of muslin (unbleached calico)
I'd made a drawstring casing in. Used nylon chalk line for
the drawstring so it would draw in such a long casing.

A drawstring doesn't hold very well on a long, narrow shape,
so I threaded carpet warp (cotton string) into a very large
needle, and, in three places under the board, took a stitch
across and tied the ends together with a surgeon's knot.

I made the padding from the good parts of a worn-out wool
mattress pad, two or three layers thick because I like to
stick pins into the board when I'm sewing. I also made the
padding too big, so that it comes down over the edges of the
board, and this is really handy when I'm ironing shirts. I
can stick the corner of the board into the shoulder of the
shirt and iron past the shoulder seam even though I can't
quite get it up onto the top of the board. On many
occasions, the padded edges allow me to use a corner of the
board instead of setting up the ham.

I found a few scraps of light plywood in different sizes and
took DH's orbital sander to them, smoothing both sides and
rounding the edges and corners. I rarely sew without using
at least one -- it's a firm surface to write on or iron in a
sharp crease, I'll stick it between layers to keep from
pinning both sides, flatten things between two layers of
plywood with a stack of books on top, stick a piece under
fabric to keep my tracing wheel from damaging the table, and
on and on.

Joy Beeson
--
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