Someday Finally Arrived...

Quote for the Day:

“You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. 

You have to be in the right mood.
What mood is that?
Last-minute panic.”
― Bill Watterson

I finally decided to take care of a project that has been staring me in the face for a while now...my less-than-stellar-looking ironing big-board cover.

For you non-quilters out there, a "big board" is a large piece of board that fits over your regular ironing board so that you have a bigger space for pressing quilt tops, backings, and fabric yardage.

You can buy one...The Original Big Board...or you can make one, if you are cheap like me!  :)   (Well...*technically* my dear husband, Andy, made it for me from some instructions I found on the internet years ago.  I don't remember exactly when he made it for me...probably 6-7 years ago, but this is the third time I've covered it...the original cover and now the second re-covering.)

It is basically a 1/2" sheet of plyboard that measures 24" X 60" covered with 2 layers of 100% cotton batting and then a layer of cheap 100% cotton fabric.  He then measured how wide and how long my ironing board is and put a "frame" underneath of the big board.  This "frame" holds the big board in place on top of my ironing board.  I can remove it when I need to iron a shirt or when I need to take the ironing board down to make room for guests.    

Here's two pictures of the underside of the board...

Originally, the board on the right in the top picture and at the bottom of the bottom picture was upright like the other three when he made it for my original ironing board that was from the 1980's.  However, that ironing board was a little wobbly, so when I found a much sturdier vintage ironing board, probably from the 1950's or '60's, at a thrift store, I snatched it up.  The "new" vintage ironing board was a couple inches wider than the original ironing board, so he had to widen the middle area.  Because of the way he had made it originally, this was the only way he could redo without me having to completely remove the original cover, etc.  Whatever...it works to keep the board on the ironing board, so that's all that counts!  :)

This is what the cover was beginning to look like.  The yellow rings/spots were from an iron I had that leaked water all the time.  :(  YUCK!

I recovered it with some cheap, $1.00/yard Walmart fabric that I have that is too flimsy to use in a quilt, and this is what it looks like now...

It took me all of about 20 minutes with a staple gun to get it finished!  :)  Now I can mark that nagging little task off of my list!  

Loretta