Sunday, April 28, 2013

When Good Covers Go Bad

With a mixture of shame, mild amusement and a perverse measure of pride, I give you Exhibit A:

When Good Ironing Board Covers Go Bad

Yes, this is the ironing board where all the magic happens. If I'm working with a particularly special fabric, I might put some paper towels down as a buffer between it and the rust stained splendor that is my cover.

Since my tailor ham and sausage project from a few posts back, I've been feeling a drive to complete a few housekeeping projects.  A new ironing board cover was definitely high on that list.

I used the great tutorial posted by the talented Sunni at A Fashionable Stitch.  I used the same Amy Butler floral print used for my tailor ham and sausage project. The tutorial calls for a layer of cotton quilt batting to be sandwiched between your top fabric and a bottom layer of cotton muslin. Well, all of my muslin is earmarked for other projects, so I just cut two layers of the batting.  In my mind, it made perfect sense.

Ironing Board Frame

I took off the old cover, removed the drawstring, and used it as my pattern.  As you can see, Macy was a big help supervising the entire project.

Ironing Board Cover Pattern

The instructions call for bias tape to be sewn along the edges and used as the casing for elastic.  I used scraps of the floral fabric to create my bias tape, but unfortunately did not have appropriate elastic.  I found some sturdy cotton yarn to use instead.

And now, I give you Exhibit B:

New Ironing Board Cover

No more shame.  The cotton yarn didn't work as well as I had hoped; there are some puckers underneath and the fit is not as tight as I would have liked.  But, from the top I think it looks great and should work well. After a few uses, I may make a few tucks in the bottom to get a better fit, but I'll see how it works out first.

2 comments: