I made an ironing board!

This sad state of affairs, my friends, is where I have been ironing for the last 3 years.

Yes. A tiny strip on my dryer.

The cord of my iron isn't long enough to go from any outlet to my kitchen table, I would need an extension cord.

I don't have an ironing board, nor really any place to store one, if I did come across one.

However, my hand dyed and hand printed/painted fabrics definitely have to be ironed to make the paint permanent. Also: quilts and small projects really benefit from having the seams pressed one way or another. Even when you sew by hand.

I used different configurations of blankets and towels to cover the dryer and use it as an ironing platform. It was, to say the least, rather inconvenient.

I had the idea to make my own ironing board a few weeks ago, when my husband dragged home an old TV tray. It was really too rickety to use as intended, but the top was a nice piece of almost wood lol.

He took the table apart for me. The legs are still waiting for a project, but the top was going to be my ironing board. A bit of pintrest research gave me a better idea of what other I gradients I had to look for.

I started scouting through my stash for flannel to use as batting, but no piece was big enough to cover the board as much as I needed and definitely not for a few layers.

I would have had to frankenstein it.

Well, yesterday my friend Eva came by to drop off a few things. Finally both of us are vaccinated, so I could even give her a hug, but I digress.

She gave me the blanket with the stag horns on it. It was in her car, but she wanted a new one and she knows I have use for everything.

Now things were falling into place. A quick wash of the blanket later, I pulled out my tools and my materials and off I went.

First I stapled... well that's a honking great lie.

My staples didn't fit my stapler , so I hammered the staples in.

I folded the blanket in half and in half again. Then laid it on my desk. I centered the board on top of it. (After I had done with the whole project I remembered I had stay on glue... yeah. This would have been a good place to try it maybe....)

I didn't want a whole lot of bulk at the bottom of the board, so I inserted the staples into the edge of the board, rather than the bottom to secure the blanket layers. I started in one edge, did the opposing edge next and made sure the blanket layers were pulled taught. Then proceeded with the other two sides the same.

Once I had three staples in each side, I added a few more in between.

After that, I cut the blanket off at the edge of the board. I also clipped the corners, again to eliminate bulk, and added extra staples on either side to secure the blanket at the corners. Sorry. No photo of the underside after the blanket was stapled on.

At first I was going to use an old pillow case to cover the board, but halfway through the project I thought better of it. I found the red tartan looking cotton fabric. I attached it just like the blanket layers, only this time instead of in the edge if the board, I did staple it to the bottom. Hammer... you get it. The bottom of the ironing board will get a non slip covering , once I can get my hands on some. So this will all be covered.❤

Something with stripes, or checkers is nice, since it can be used to align things and for measuring. My board can also become an impromptu blocking station now, since the stripes make it easier to get straight borders.

The fabric is maybe not my absolute favourite for this, but I can change it out later, when I run into something I like better.

For now I have a nice little place to iron small things. I definitely want a larger one of these in the future. When I have an atelier as it were lol.

Right now I am super happy and just a little chuffed with myself, for having done it all on my own and all with recycled/reused/thrifted materials. (The red fabric came from the thrift store just before Christmas. It was in a $2 bag of other fabrics I bought and not really my favourite, but you get what you get.)

This project cost me $2 for the fabric. The rest was free and rescued from going to the landfill.

Just the way I like it.

So there you have it. How I spent my weekend. Well, part of it anyway.

What is the last zero waste project you put together?

Do tell me, or better show me! I always love to share inspiration.

Hope you have a great start to the new week!

Xo,❤

B. 🐝