Looking for a way to reorganize and make your working space more compatible for your quilting projects? Turn a regular wooden table that you have laying around into an over-sized ironing board perfect for any project size. By having a larger ironing board it will allow you to have extra room to lay things out properly and iron large pieces of fabrics.
Benefits of the table:
- Designed to your preference
- Bigger space for crafting
- Sturdier place to iron and work on projects
- Can decorate table as you please
What you’ll need:
- Wooden table (any size you want)
- Two to three layers of 100% cotton batting
- One piece of cotton decorator weight fabric
- Cotton twill tape
- Staple gun
- Pin tacks
- Fabric glue
Step 1. Pick out your table
You can either choose to use a regular dinner table about 30 inches high or a higher bar table, either is great. Simply choose whichever height and length you prefer to work with when working on projects. Once you have picked out your table make sure you properly clean the table with warm water and soap before turning it into an ironing board. Depending on the table you might want to use something besides soap and water to clean the table if there is extra dust or marks on it. You can also use a commercial deglossing liquid to make your table look brand new. Once your table is properly cleaned it is time for the next step.
Step 2. Tape off the edges (optional)
This step is only for people who wish to spray paint their table legs a different color simply for style preference. Spray paint your table outside away from any valuable objects and let it set for 20 minutes until until dry.
Step 3. Picking out the layers
Measure the top of your table to get an accurate measurement for what lengths of fabric you will need before heading to the store. Make sure you add an extra foot to your measurements for the fabrics, this will give you extra room for attaching the fabric underneath the table edges. Next you will use two layers of 100% cotton battling and one piece of cotton decorator weight fabric to create the padding for your iron table board. You will also need a staple gun to attach the cloth under the table edges.
Tip: When picking out the fabric you want make sure you choose one that isn’t going to bleed into your precious blocks of fabric when ironing. Try to avoid colors that tend to do so such as red. If there is dye in the cloth make sure that you wash it first before creating your iron table. If you need help feel free to ask an employee working, they will be able to help you pick out the material.
Step 4. Attaching the fabric to the table
Once you have your fabric cut to the proper length of the table with the extra foot of fabric to pin under the table, you want to now stack the layers of fabric on top of the table. The cotton decorator weight fabric goes on the top and the two or three layers of cotton battling goes underneath it, giving more padding to the table. Be careful when handling the batting because it can easily tear.
Once you have it on your table with the fabric distributed evenly on each side pin it down with pin tacks under the table edges. Make sure that the pin tacks can be easily removed, the purpose of doing this is to hold the fabric in place when using the staple gun. Sometimes its easier to do this by placing the table top with the fabric flat on the ground to pin it. This prevents the fabric from moving from one side of the table to another making it uneven as well as straining your back from bending under the table. Once you have pinned the fabric to keep it in place use a staple gun to staple the fabric securely in place around the edges of the board. Leave the corners for last when stapling so that you can easily fold them over and staple them in place. To staple corners first pull them into a triangle and then fold it over twice and then staple. This is a similar method as when you wrap a present and you need to fold the edges into a triangle and then fold again before taping it to secure the wrapping. Once all edges of the table are stapled in remove the pin tacks that were once holding the fabric in place.
Step 5. Hide the staples
To hide the staples use a cotton twill tape and glue it over the the outline of the staples for a nice polished clean look. By doing this it will also prevent things from getting hooked to the staples. If it helps put the table with the top on the ground for a better view and position in order to properly glue the cotton twill tape over the staples along the sides of the table.
Make sure to post your end result of your ironing table on our mobile app. Or share any tips and other creative ideas that you might have used when creating your ironing board table.
Live Well. Quilt Well.