The Easiest Ironing Board Cover Ever!

The Easiest Ironing Board Cover Ever!

http://www.makeithandmade.com/

So... on Mother's day, I not only made these oven mitts for my mom-- but I also made a little something for myself...

An ironing board cover!

My iron seemed to have stomach bug and would randomly spit up gross brown water all over my ironing board cover. I was able to cure the iron, but my ironing board cover was hopelessly stained. So I whipped this one up while my kids were out getting breakfast on Mother's Day morning. (Yes, at the same time I did those oven mitts-- they are both crazy quick projects)

I looked at some tutorials online, but all of them required flipping the board over, tracing etc. And who wants to do that on her day off? So I came up with this super easy way of creating an ironing board cover that honestly takes only 10 minutes and a couple yards of fabric. This cover simply goes over your old cover as an additional layer.

Before we begin; a confession: You'll notice that there is no before picture. That's because my ironing board cover was too disgusting even for the internet. Just use your imagination.
Materials:
2.5 yards of 1/4 inch elastic
Fabric (2 yards of cotton or cotton-linen blend)
3 yards of 1 inch Bias tape or 2 inch bias strips (premade or store bought)

First, fold your fabric in half and drape over the ironing board as shown. The fold should be at the center of the ironing board; and the fabric should hang over the ironing board by at least 3 inches on either short end.

Then, without tracing, flipping or measuring, trim both layers of fabric roughly 3 inches from the edge of the table.  When you get to the narrow portion of the table, just follow the curve as best you can.

Now for the fun part! We are going to use the bias tape to make a quick casing for the elastic. Fold your bias tape in half, wrong sides together so the raw edges are touching. Line the raw edges with the *right* side of the cover fabric and sew or serge almost all the way around the cover. Leave a 2-3 inch gap to thread the elastic through.

Observant readers might notice that I did it wrong in the photo. Unobservant little old me, didn't notice until I was halfway done, so I just left it. This part will be underneath the ironing board, so it doesn't have to be perfect.

Thread the elastic through the gap in the casing, and put it over the ironing board. Once you give the elastic a good tug, the cover will look like you spent hours on it.

Smooth out any wrinkles, and tie off the elastic underneath the table.

The cover looks so cheery, and it even looks matches my dining room where I've been doing most of my sewing.

 And it makes pressing out my projects that much more fun! Hello there Sprocket Pillows!

If any of you have been putting off making a cover-- I hope you give this a try! As always, if you like these tutorials-- please consider subscribing (using RSS), signing up for emails, or following using blogger!

Polo placket the sewing DD

Placket's tutorial video youtube

Placket Tutorial

MAY 19, 2010

I’m participating in A Frock By Friday, an online sew-along where women across the country world work on a dress step by step through the week to finish by Friday.  It’s led by Kathleen of Grosgrain.

The end result will be this fabulous dress.  I chose a super lightweight denim for my dress and decided against using a contrast fabric.  I decided to use a placket, a traditional menswear detail, on my dress front to give it some cowgirl flair.

Here’s what I did.  This tutorial (mostly) follows the steps laid out in David Page Coffin amazingShirtmaking.

First, let’s see the finished product.  The buttonhole layer of my placket is 7/8 inch wide and the button layer is 3/4 inch wide.  The placket is roughly 19 inches long.

Step 1: Cut the placket out.  You’ll need to cut out a rectangle 4.5 inches by 21 inches.  Why?  Well, since you’re curious, the formula is

seam allowance + 3*button layer width + 2*button hole layer width

In this case that’s .25 + 3 x .875 + 2 x .75 + .25 = 4.5 inches wide.

Place your placket face down and cut a 2 inch by 2.75 inch rectangle out of the bottom right corner.

Let’s take a minute to orient ourselves.

Step 2: With the wrong side of the fabric up, fold the long side and the short side under by ¼ inch.  Press.

Step 3: Marking your fabric.  You will make 4 lines total, 3 on the placket and one on the dress front.  Put the placket face down.  You’ll be able to see the edges you folded under.  Make a line 1½ inches from the folded short edge.  Make a line 1¾ inches from the folded long edge.  Make a third line ½ inch from the long part of the bottom.  The photo should make it clearer.

Marking the dress front is easy: mark a line down the center of the dress on the wrong side of the fabric.

Step 4: Sewing the placket to the dress front.  Place the dress front face down on the table.  Place the placket face down on the dress front.  Position the placket so that the center line of the dress front is between the long lines you drew on the placket.

Pin the placket in place and sew the placket to the dress front along the lines you drew on the placket.  The stitching will be in a U shape.

Step 5: Cut a Y shape between the lines of stitching.  In the photo I’ve fanned it out so that it’s clear where I’ve cut it.

Step 6: Turn the whole placket to the right side of the dress front.

Here's what it should look like when you've turned the placket to the right side of the dress front. You shouldn't press it like this. I'm just trying to keep you oriented.

We’re going to work with the short side (the eventual button layer) of the placket first.  Press the seam towards the placket.  Then fold the placket back to the seam line and press again.  Here’s what it should look like, I’ve pinned the edge back so that you can see the seam.

Step 7: Sew two lines of top stitching on placket.  This side of the placket now encloses dress front.

Step 8: Repeat steps 6 and 7 for the long side of the placket (the eventual buttonhole layer.

Step 9: You’re almost there!  You can probably see what need to happen to finish this.  Let’s take a look at the bottom of the placket.

Clip your threads and fold the short edge over carefully as shown.  Pin it in place.  Check to make sure the wrong side of the dress front also looks like the pictures and sew in place.

The right side of the dress front. When you sew the short side of the placket in place, you'll be sewing where the pin is.

Here's the wrong side of the dress front. See the pin?

Step 10: Fold the long edge of the placket over the short edge.  Turn the end of the long end under.  You may decide to trim the long end a bit; that’s fine.  Press and sew the distinctive X at the bottom of the placket.  You’re done!

A close-up of the finished product

Ship Shape Button Placket Tutorial

Printed Washi Dress patterns: an experimentPuff-sleeve flashback tee + tutorial

Ship Shape Button Placket Tutorial

Posted September 26, 2012

I’m so excited to be part of Sarah Jane’s Out to Sea Blog Tour today! I’m going to show you the adorable Charlie Tunic I made for Elliot with two of the Out to Sea prints, along with a tutorial on how to add the button placket.

The Out to Sea collection is absolutely stunning. Sarah is so talented! We met last Spring at Quilt Market and got to see this collection first hand in all of its glory. I also really love her first line, Children at Play, with sweet illustrations that show the carefree days of childhood. I think it’s great that her fabric collections have both featured a number of designs for BOYS!

Don’t worry though, still plenty of prints for girls as you can see below (see more here). Sarah has designed a lovely collection of Wall Art prints to go with the Out to Sea fabrics as well.

One of the best things about this collection for me (besides the amazing designs that Sarah draws) is the fact that this line is printed on the cotton couture substrate from Michael Miller. Translation: totally soft, lovely, lightweight cottons perfect for not only quilting, but many types of garments as well. I just had to try it out on a Charlie Tunic for Elliot!

I thought it would be so clever to have him pose with his Playmobil ship, which goes PERFECTLY with this fabric. For some reason he did not find this as clever as I did.

He was more about putting the ship in front of his face.

Then I asked him what his favorite part of the ship was. Guess.

That’s right, the cannon. He then proceeded to shoot the little spring-loaded cannonball at my head, which made contact with my forehead about the exact same time I took this shot.

He thought that was pretty clever.

For this tutorial, I thought I’d show you how to add a cute little button placket that extends across the gap that gets created when you add the neck facings on the outside of the Charlie Tunic. This is a nice way to finish the neckline that doesn’t require button loops!

Note: I used my Charlie Tunic Sewing Pattern for this one, but really you could add reverse facings to ANY pullover pattern with a simple neckline like Charlie – just trace around the neckline and shoulders and add 2-3″ around the outside and down the center to make a the facing pieces.

Step 1: Cut out all your pieces.

You’ll need a front and back, two sleeves, a front facing, a back facing, and a placket piece. Cut your placket piece 3″ wide and plenty long so you can trim it down later. The length really depends on the size of your tunic, but 10″ long is PLENTY. I chose to interface my facings but it’s completely optional.

Step 2: Sew the shoulder seams

I used a 1/2″ seam here. It’s really important to finish these seams with a serger, a french seam, or a flat-felled seam; if it frays, it will show at the neckline!

Step 3: Mark placket location and measure how big your placket needs to be

Make two marks along the center line of the front facing: one where the neckline seam allowance hits (dotted line) and another where the bottom of the slit will be (the black dot on the pattern piece). Measure between these marks.

Step 4: Cut your placket piece to size

Add 1/2″ to the measurement you found in Step 3 and cut the placket strip that new length.

Step 5: Sew the placket piece together

Fold the placket piece in half lengthwise with its wrong side facing out. Sew the ends together with 1/4″ seams. Turn it right-side out and press.

Step 6: Baste the placket to the front facing

Now place the placket piece between the two marks you made, just over the center line, and machine baste in place along the center line Don’t skip this step. I’m talking to you, Basting Skippers!!

Step 7: Get the facings ready

Use the same seam allowance you used for the shoulder seams in Step 2 (1/2″) to sew the front facing and back facing together. Press the seams apart. Then press 1/4″ under around the entire outside edge of the facing. Clip the front curves to make this easier.

Step 8: Pin the facings to the neckline

Be very careful to keep the facing perfectly centered on both the front and back; then pin all the way around the facings.

Then go ahead and draw where you are going to stitch — around the neck, down the middle of the placket, and up the other side — with a fabric pen and ruler. I draw my lines just over 1/8″ away from the center line (use the basting stitches as a guide).

Step 9: Sew the facings around the neckline and down/up the center.

Now you’re going to sew all the way around the neckline with a 1/2″ seam, then pivot on your needle and sew down the center line, pivot again and sew a few stitches across, and then pivot again and go back up the center line, etc, until you have sewn around the entire facing/neckline. You want to be SURE that you are sewing through the placket on one side, but not on the other, so stick to those marks you made. Be careful when you turn the corner closest to the placket — you want to make sure that you don’t accidentally sew it down!

Then trim the neckline to 1/4″ and cut right down the middle of the center front stitch lines. Clip to the corners at the bottom of the placket as close as you can without going through the stitching.

Step 10: Turn the facings to the outside and stitch down

This is the fun part. Press the entire neckline and then flip the facings all the way around to the outside. Press the seams again so the facings lay flat, and pin them in place.

Nice right? Now edgestitch around the outside of the facings to stitch them down. A double row of stitches looks nice here.

Step 11: Complete the rest of the top

Start by attaching the sleeves:

and then sewing the side seams, hemming the bottom, and finishing the cuffs. I used a contrast cuff as shown in the Charlie Tunic instructions.

Then it’s time to play with button placement! There are so many options…you can keep the button flap on the outside and put the buttonholes on it as shown above, or even put buttons on both sides with the button placket underneath:

I decided to put the buttons on the placket underneath and sew some buttonholes in the facing right along the center. You could also sew on snaps or even velcro, but I personally like the buttons more.

So sew those buttons and buttonholes, and your top is finished!

Thanks for having me as part of the tour, Sarah! Click over to the Sarah Jane blog to see more of her designs and snap up a coupon code for $2 off the Charlie Tunic Sewing Pattern that’s good until Friday.

You can see all of the posts in the Out to Sea blog tour by clicking on the image above