Turn your Ironing Board into a Mega Pressboard

Almost two years ago I picked up my current ironing board. I had to buy a new one after a 2:30 AM disaster but that’s a whole other story entirely. I picked the big one at Target cause it felt like it had better padding than the other one and the larger size should accommodate ironing fabric better (so I thought) since this was going to be used 99% for sewing related ironing and pressing and 1% ironing that one skirt that needs pressing about twice a year. That skirt was white and one unfortunate juice incident and multiple attempts at washing and she is no lover with us (RIP white skirt with the black embroidery on it.)

Please excuse the photos quality; they were taken at night with an old iPhone before I had started the blog!

Old ironing board before the remodel

If always drove me nuts that I had to preposition a fat quarter at least twice to fully iron it and that when ironing a full width of a yard of fabric the 44″ didn’t fit on the squared surface of the ironing board.

Pressing fabric on a traditional ironing board is a pain! A full width of 44″ doesn’t fit and the depth doesn’t accommodate a fat quarter.

I’d seen videos and tutorials about making your own press boards and decided what I wanted to do was fit a press board on the frame of my ironing board, so yesterday that’s what I did. I had a friend of mine cut me a board, I think it’s birch which is probably a much nicer and heavier wood than I needed to use but it’s what he had on hand and I thought it best to stay away from woods with glue in them because of the heat of the iron. Fortunately even though my living room is my sewing area I live alone so no one is bothered by the fact my ironing board is only put away once a blue moon. I measured my current ironing board and asked him to cut me a piece at a little bigger, at least 55×19″ My goal was to be able to press a whole fat quarter. I picked it up from his garage last weekend then ran to Jo-Ann’s, Home Depot and Burger King to get started. (Burger King is optional but sometimes I’m too busy crafting to cook, don’t judge me.)

Supplies for your new AWESOME pressboard

Here’s all the supplies I needed:

• Board (mine was 55×19″)
• 100% Cotton batting (I used 4 layers which used 2 packages of craft size batting<strong=”footnote”>*
• 100% Cotton duck canvas (at least 8 inches wider and longer than your board)<strong=”footnote”>*
• Staple gun & staples shorter than the depth of your board
• Hammer
• Scissors (I used my regular scissors, didn’t want to dull my fabric scissors on the canvas)
• Spray bottle of water (not pictured)

<strong=”footnote”>* – it’s important to use 100% cotton because a hot iron for pressing seam allowances may cause polyester or synthetic materials to melt.

Supplies to attach the board to the ironing board frame:

• Drill
• Screwdrive
• Screws
• Washers

How to make your press board

1. Lay out your batting layers, make sure you smooth them out as best you can, once you start stapling it’s not easy to turn back
   

   Lay your batting flat on the floor

2. Wrap the batting around the board and staple in place. You’ll want to pull the batting a bit to make sure it’s taught around the board.
   

   Lay board on batting

   1. Start by securing each corner and tucking the batting in to create smooth rounded edges
   2. Once all four corners are secure tack down the short ends
   3. On the long sides tack down in the middle, then half way between the middle and each end to keep the wrapping even and smooth.
   

   Wrap around the corners first, making as many folds as you need to make a tidy corner

3. Check your board to make sure you don’t have any major tucks or problems in the batting layer
4. Hammer down all the staples, even though very few of my staples really NEEDED to be hammered in I feel better knowing that all the staples had a securing hammer tap to it.
5. Layout the canvas and place the batting covered board in the center.
   

   Lay canvas face down, smooth and center board batting side down

6. Repeat the same process with the canvas as you did with the batting. Staple it in, corners first, then short ends and then long ends. Make sure with the canvas that you pull it as tight as you can, you want the canvas to create a strong wrap around the batting and board. I made sure my canvas would reach past my batting and folded the raw edges because the pinking sheers just didn’t cut it to keep the fray away.
   

   Staple that canvas on the board

7. Flip over your board and marvel at it’s awesome.
   

   Board with batting & canvas applied

   

   Marvelous pressboard!

Attaching the board to your ironing board base

This specifically applies to ironing boards with a metal mesh top

1. Remove the old grimy cover and batting
2. Center the ironing board base on your board and mark on the board where you want to attach the screws. Try and spread it out pretty evenly and creating triangles (triangles are strong) On this photo I’ve illustrated where all my screw were attached.
   

   The green dots mark where I drilled my holes

3. For each screw attachment point drill a pilot hole. A pilot hole is where you drill a hole just a hair smaller than the screws’ size to make it easier to screw in.
   

   Drilling a pilot hole

4. Put the washer on the screw and screw the pair into each hole
   

   Use the washer to make sure the frame stays secure

5. Flip over your ironing board and marvel at the amazing thing you’ve created
   

   For real, the best thing I’ve ever made. So useful!

Tighten the canvas

Whether you’re using your press board on a table or attached to a ironing board base you should try and tighten the canvas. I’ve read to just spray it down with water and let it dry or using hot water and a sponge but what i did was saturate it with a pray bottle and let it mostly dry. Once it was mostly dry I turned my iron onto high with full steam and ironed all over the board (even the edges)

Spray with water then heat to dry to tighten up the canvas

How Does it Work?

In a  word: MAGNIFICENT! That night I wanted to whip up a couple quilt blocks and it was amazing to be able to press all 6 fat quarters without having to re-position the fabric. I also loved pressing my seams so flat on a paper pieced FWQ block.
I made it in November and 6+ months later I don’t think I’ve ever taken it down in my “craft area” (aka. living room).

Look, a fat quarter fits!!!

Additional sources

There’s other great tutorials on making press boards, I always recommend before you take on a DIY you check how many people do it. Other bloggers have better ideas on the type of wood to use and have more details on wrapping corners than I did so check em out!

• Perfect Pressing Boards: A DIY Tutorial – Sew Much Like Mom
• diy pressing board – Splis, Splash Stash
• TV Tray Pressing Board Tutorial – Oh, Fransson!
• Shaorn Schamber’s Perfect Pressing Board – YouTube video

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If you’ve built a custom ironing area or pressboard share it with us in the comments!