Ironing Board Cover Re-do

My ironing board was seriously icky. For one thing, the padding beneath the cover was totally flat and even sort of disintegrating in places, so bad that sometimes when pressing I would end up with the imprint of the metal frame of the board on my fabric! Not desireable at all. Not to mention the discoloration of the cover. So I searched my favorite blogs and pretty much followed this tutorial from Comfort Stitching to make a new one. I ended up having to piece together fabric to make my piece long enough - I thought what I had, the floral print, was enough but apparently ironing boards are longer than you think - but I love the result with the tiny polka dotted stripes.

I purchased a huge wool blanket from the thrift store for a couple of dollars and cut it up into three pieces, trimmed them to the size of my board and layered them beneath the cover. I'm thinking that will last a whole lot longer than the flimsy foam that it came with.





And to go along with that, my new iron! A 'Black & Decker All Temp Steam Iron'. My old one was very finicky - it had been a wedding gift, and served its purpose, because let's be honest, I very rarely ironed anything at all, so it got the job done - but the steam was unpredictable and couldn't be turned on/off, the steam was just always on unless the tank was empty. For sewing I wanted something a bit better. I got this iron for half price, and it is awesome. It is really heavy, which is good for pressing, and it has steam on/off for all the different temperature settings. Funny thing to get all excited about, it is just an iron after all, but I feel quite spoiled!