Happy Veteran's Day!

I want to extend my most sincere *thank you* to all our veterans as well as those currently serving in the military. My family doesn't take this duty lightly and we recognize that it is because of these brave men and women that we live in the land of the free and home of the brave. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your service to our great country!

A few days ago I received a nice surprise in my mailbox. Don't you just love surprises? Well the wonderful folks at Ottobre magazine somehow found out that I'd won the PR Sewing for Children contest and sent me these goodies! Now how sweet was that? All the way from Finland - it totally warmed my heart. Included with the card were three little buttons for my children to wear on their clothes, backpack, etc. and a beautiful 2009 planner/calendar. Thank you Ottobre team!!!!! See I keep telling you all they are so awesome, they seriously have the best customer service and not to mention the best kids patterns.

So my ironing board cover was getting a little ratty. It wasn't that bad, but the ironing board I got came from Wally World. I really wanted an oversized ironing board so I upgraded earlier in the year. I had looked at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, but they wanted like $80+ for the ironing board and I just couldn't see spending that much money. So I happened to be at Walmart (my least favorite store) one day and saw they carried the oversized ironing boards too. I can't recall the exact price, but it was $40 or less. I came with an extra cover which I have no idea where I put. I could have dug around to find it, but I found the cover always wanting to grab what I was ironing and shifting around. Plus the pad it came with is ultra thin. The bottom line was this ironing board needed a makeover!

I have seen others make ironing board covers on their blogs and figured it couldn't be too hard. I found some off white denim in my stash and figured that would be perfect. Durable, yet light colored so I wouldn't get any bleeding of the cover onto a garment (wouldn't that be a nightmare!). Then I picked up a package of 100% cotton batting at Joann's over the weekend.

To make the cover, I first traced around my ironing board leaving a 2" margain around the board (let me say this now, you need more than 2" to do it my way, I think 3" would have been perfect).

Next I cut out my fabric.

Then I serged around the raw edges of the cover so the edges wouldn't ravel. After serging, I pressed a 5/8" SA, stitched the pressed edge down to form a casing in which I fed 1/4" elastic through the casing. I put it on my ironing board and adjusted my elastic to get the fit right. Once I got the length of the elastic where I wanted it, I sewed the ends of my elastic together and closed the casing up.

Lastly, I placed my ironing board upside down again and traced the shape onto the batting. I cut two layers of the batting plus I used the original batting/pad as the bottom layer on the ironing board. I have a total of three layers plus my cover and it seems like the perfect thickness.

Here is the finished board. I would have liked the elasticized edge to go under the board a bit more, so next cover I will trace with a 3" boarder so I have enough extra fabric around the edges. I actually didn't have enough fabric to make it any wider tho since what I had was a small scrap. Oh well, live and learn.

Here is the underside. You can see it's skimpy on the sides, but I got it pulled up more in the front for better coverage of the cover. In all, a quick and easy project, tho I did start it yesterday but was interrupted by having to get the kids from school and take them to swimming lessons.

I hope this inspires someone to make a new cover for their ironing board. Such an easy project!