made myself an ironing board cover

Pretty proud of myself today!

I made myself an ironing board cover.

Not perfect ... in fact made plenty of mistakes and took too many shortcuts but decided to get it done rather than worry about perfection.

For the most part I enjoyed myself.

It took most of today ie several hours (approx 3)and probably would have taken about 5 or 6 if I had tried to do it properly.

I will test it out in the next few days to see if it holds up under the act of ironing!

Funnily enough I planned to make this probably over 6 months ago. I bought the materials I needed, after looking on the internet for instructions.

My main motivation for doing it was to save money ... figured it would cost less if I made it myself ... not happy with the cheap ones at WW and the more expensive ones with padding were around $17.

After I returned from the sewing store complete with swimming elastic, padding, and calico fabric I realized two things ....

1) I had spent more than $17 on materials ... and would now also have to spend time making the ironing board cover.

2) Somehow I was about 10cm short on my calico material.

ARrrrrghhhhh

This is not the first time I have ended up spending too much money trying to save money ... not sure when and if I will learn!!!

Anyway for the last six months or so I have just been using some old cloth nappies over the old damaged ironing board cover with the slightly too short peice of calico draped on top.

Apart from anything that has to fit over the narrow end of the ironing board while being ironed, I didn't really have any hassles with this method of covering.

But ....

The baby coming next year necessitates :-

a) that I get my sewing projects either finished or decide to give up on them altogether.
b) that I find and organize all my sewing gear and find a new home for it somewhere other than the babies room
c) that I have to put the ironing board away after each each use in the linen cupboard so it is not taking up valuable lounge room space ... and of course I can not do this quickly and easily if I have several layers of fabric draped over it instead of securely fastened.