Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Make a Perfect Pressing Board


Are you dissatisfied with your ironing board or pressing surface? Long ago I became very tired of pressing my blocks on pressing mats that were soft and squishy. It's much better to press blocks on a firm surface rather than a padded one. I knew that my blocks always turned out nicer when I pressed on my smooth kitchen counters (which are made of heat-resistant soapstone) and I loved pressing there. Awhile ago I found a great tutorial on Cristy's blog for a firm, portable pressing board and have been eager to try making one of these for myself to fit nicely on one side of the cutting table in my (small) sewing area. 


I have to smile as I press and look at the sweet birdies.

If you're looking to change and enhance your pressing surface, check out her tutorial and make one of these cool boards for yourself in any size you like. It's very simple - all you  need is the board, fabric, cotton batting (NOT polyester), a staple gun and glue. I bought the inexpensive OSB (engineered wood board) at Home Depot and had them cut it 18" x 24". These would also be perfect in a smaller size for taking along to classes. I still have a large portion of the board left over from what they cut so I may make another and keep it somewhere else. 


The perfect pressing board  Thanks, Cristy, for the great tutorial.  Here's a link to a video made by Sharon Schamber (Cristy's mother). 



It's the perfect size for pressing my small blocks and my small quilts and much better than a large ironing board or pressing mat. The ironing board is tucked away nearby if I need it for borders or larger quilts : )


6 comments:

Candee said...

Love this idea Kathy. Thank you.

Jackie said...

A few years ago I made some as gifts with wood T.V. trays. I'll have to give this a try. Thank you....

Jennifer M said...

I plan to check out the tutorial. Sounds like a great idea to me! Thanks Kathy: ))

Karen said...

I have my grandma's ironing board from many moons ago. It's upstairs in my room and convenient for the time being. I love your little ironing board! The fabric is adorable and fun to look at, so I suppose it makes ironing much more fun for you now. I will have to make one this summer and see how will it works. Thanks for the tutorial site.

moosecraft said...

Wonderful! Thanks for sharing! And, since the fabric is so attractive, it's something we wouldn't mind having out in the open (instead of always having to put away the ugly ironing board)... :-) Thanks for sharing!
P.S. I was missing your posts as blogger hasn't been updating the feed either on my blog side bar or through the blogger dashboard... not sure if anyone else has had this happen to them? Anyways, just clicked on an old post to see what's up and notice you've been updating just fine...

Kathleen Tracy said...

Thanks for letting me know. I had no idea people were having problems finding or reading the blog. -K

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