Harriet’s Ironing Board Cover
Which is why, for this month I decided to go a little off-piste and make a pretty ironing board cover… I think it was the very Cath Kidston-esque fabric that did it!
The whole ironing board cover took me about an hour, and it’s a method that can be applied to an ironing board of any size – matching sleeve pressing boards, anyone?
I’ve made these instructions as clear as possible and included lots of picture guides to help too. I hope you like the finished cover!
What you’ll need:
- An ironing board and heatproof wadding (should come with the ironing board when you buy it)
- Your fabric – should be long and wide enough to fit the ironing board
- Matching thread
- Fabric scissors
- Around 1.5m of 6mm or 8mm wide elastic
- Tape measure
- Pins
- Tailors chalk/ something to use to mark your fabric
- Optional: Overlocker/ pinking shears to finish raw edges of your fabric.
HOW TO DO IT:
- Place the fabric wrong side up on the table, and place your ironing board down onto the fabric. Use a marking tool to trace around the outside of the ironing board – we’ll add seam allowance in the next step.
- Measure the depth of your ironing board, to help you to figure out how much extra fabric you’ll need so that the ironing board cover will fit properly. Add an extra 1.5cm (5/8 inch) to this measurement, and make a note of it.
- Using a tape measure, draw around the original outline of the ironing board that you made on the fabric, using the measurement that you just took. The measurement I added, for example, was 4 ½ cm, but this number will vary depending on your ironing board. Make sure that you’re especially careful on the curved areas, so that you’re as accurate as possible!
- Using fabric scissors, cut around the line that you just drew and finish the raw edges with a zigzag stitch, an overlocker or pinking shears.
- This is where we get the elastic involved. There are two ways that you can figure out how much elastic you’re going to need, so go with whichever you prefer. You can either:
- Lay the elastic directly onto the first outline of the ironing board that you drew onto the fabric, without stretching the elastic at all. Add an extra 3cm of elastic, so that you’ll be able to overlap the elastic at the join (see the image below to see what I mean).
- Use your tape measure to measure around the original outline of the ironing board. Add 3cm, and then cut some elastic to the same length.
- Around 1cm from the edge of your cut-out ironing board cover, start pinning the elastic to the wrong side of the fabric. You’ll have to stretch out the elastic as you go – that way, the cover will fit the ironing board nice and snugly when you pop it on.
- Sew the elastic onto the fabric using a zigzag or stretch stitch. Make sure to stretch the elastic out as you sew, so that the cover will be tight enough when it goes on, and so that the ends of the elastic overlap by 3cm.
- Put the heatproof wadding back onto the ironing board, and then put your brand spanking new ironing board cover on over the top! You might experience a little bit of wrinkling in the fabric, but a once-over with the iron will help the cover to properly mould to the shape of the ironing board.
