Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Ironing Board Covers!

Ms. Distraction spilled the beans yesterday: we made ironing board covers! I know, very exciting, but if your cover sucks, a lousy job* is so much worse. Ironing is so much more fun with cherries (or gin).

A few weeks ago, Stef sent me a link to an ironing board cover tutorial on Marmadaisy (a blog to which I am now addicted, thanks!) and we decided it would be fun project to do together.

Old Cover

Here is the old cover for my larger board. At some point it got stained with what looks like Kool-Aid. It's laid out on Stef's board, but it doesn't fit mine either. Stef and her husband have dubious taste, and think the fabric is wonderful. I think it is stupid.

Small Cover

This is the old cover for my smaller board, which I use while sewing. It is very dirty. And boring.

Getting Ready

Both boards came with lousy padding, so I made new ones out of cotton batting.

Cut out

I used pinking shears to cut them out, rather than finishing in a more labor intensive way (like zig-zagging and trimming).

And here are my much more cheerful ironing boards:

Cherry Ironing Board

Little Ironing Board

We had a great time and the only swearing on my part had to with sewing machine mishaps. It turns out, using someone else's (much better) machine is a lot like driving someone else's car -- you can't figure out how to turn on the lights and reverse is more mysterious. Also, you might decide you need a new car and/or sewing machine.

*Fairly soon after we moved in together, a friend of Len's died. I overheard him talking to another friend about what he would wear to the funeral: "I have some khakis and a shirt, but they need to be ironed... No, I wouldn't be with a woman who has an iron." Hahaha!! I always forgets that he moved in with a girl.

3 comments:

Sharon said...

I can't help but wonder how many young households today even own an ironing board. I'm afraid I can't wean myself off using one.

tea said...

Fantastic! I NEED to recover my ironing board. You can feel it's bones through the worn-out padding. Also, you're so totally right: Using someone else's sewing machine IS like driving someone else's car. Good call.

Anonymous said...

The boards look great! I'm so happy we did this. Can't wait for the next sewing date...