When I’m sewing quilts many of the times I have to press seams constantly. This was an issue for me because I had to get up from the sewing table, walk over to the ironing area and press, walk back, sew, get up, walk over… you get the idea. LOL
I had seen MANY pins on Pinterest about turning a wooden TV tray into an ironing board. YES! Then I could just fold it up and tuck away when not in use or take it out while I’m working. No extra space or desk area needed!
So off to Amazon I went. Yes, I love that place. I found one at a reasonable price and free shipping with my Prime account.
Here it is out of the box. (You can see where I had my ironing board at that time. Aaaaallll the way across the room. LOL This was back in Sept. 2014. Can’t believe I never shared a post about it. Oops!)
How I created it – You can click to enlarge images if you need to.
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- Painted Legs Black to match my other studio furniture. Totally optional.
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- Bottom layer Heavy Cotton – Layer of Heat Reflecting Batting on top of that. Make sure the reflective pieces are facing down at this point towards the cotton cover.
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- Laid the table centered on top of layers
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- Pulled corners over to underside, Stapled
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- Pulled Sides in over corner, Stapled. This had round corners, so I chose not to trim them out first.
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- Stapled between corners – Trimmed excess material after
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- Done! Perfect Mini Ironing Board next to my sewing machine.
I think this took me about an hour to make after letting the paint dry.
Supplies I used:
Staple Gun
Satin Finish Black Paint (could use a spray paint too, it’s just what I had left over from doing the book shelves.)
Poly-Therm Heat Reflective Fleece
Untreated Cotton Duck Canvas Cloth for cover, The first time I used plain cotton fabric, lesson learned. Didn’t hold up as well with all it’s use over past two years. I have since recovered this in the untreated Duck Cloth.
Here she is today. When not in use, I fold up and store right next to my HUGE DIY sewing table. (For another post lol).
I use my Steamfast Mini Iron or my Clover Mini Iron depending on what I’m doing instead of my full sized iron. That lives at my oversized Ironing Board that I made also after this. Made it the same way using a 2 foot by 3 foot piece of left over plywood from another project. Sanded down the corners and attached the batting and cloth exactly the same way. I love love love having this larger area for ironing! It sits centered on top of a book shelf for now. Have to be cautious about not pressing down near the edge, but until I find and get another vintage treadle sewing machine base, (should have NEVER sold mine!), it will live here. When I do find one, I’m going to mount the board on top of it. 🙂 For now it’s totally movable and I even put it on the cutting table when ironing long huge pieces of fabrics.
Then it will look like THIS! Sigh… Makes my heart sing. LOL
