Move over ironing board, make way for iron caddy tote!
One of the demons of sewing in my little corner of the world called the living room, is space. Ideally the more room you have the more efficient you can work.
My space is a 18 inch buffet with a rotating mat on one end and my 18 X 24 mat on the other. The sewing machine sits upon it. If I have to cut fabric, I have to remove everything off the surface.
Additionally, when I iron, it is located in a different room entirely, so lots of steps two and fro, and not really the best set up, but it is what I have room for.
So my ironing board just got a facelift so to speak. The muslin cover became decrepit. Somehow the batting on the underside became melted, and somehow the top was scorched. If you ran the iron over the surface it would actually crunch. Not sure when this happened and it wasn’t too long ago I washed the muslin cover. It bit the dust, so I got my scraps out of the aluminized coated fabric and pieced together a large enough piece to cover most of the iron board. Using my scraps of batting laid them underneath and it will get me through for the yardage I have to iron.
Not sure if you recall a previous post of mine where I had made iron caddy totes for my mom and aunt for mothers day. Both of these totes I gave away with the intention of making myself one. Well I finally got around to it.
During my acquisition of some quilt blocks in an online auction, I decided I was going to go scrappy with a theme of 30s reproduction fabrics. I knew I had two charm packs with fabrics in this scheme.
So I deemed a coral fabric would tie all these together. And started sewing, with no plan and it all came together.
So one side is for decoration and to look cute with your hot iron pocketed nicely inside. It provides a wonderful ironing side with aluminized fabric much like an ironing board but smaller and portable. With all the layers of insulbrite and batting, there are no worries of the surface you are ironing on. So this will still be in another room but atop the washing machine or the dryer which is usually ready for use as we store nothing on top. I can leave it out or put it up, cute and utilitarian. I have decided to safety pin it closed as I do not like the way the elastic is called out, nor do I like affixing a button onto something which will then make it difficult to iron around.
If you are interested in the pdf on the pattern for this tote click here it is free!
Stay tuned, the weekend is almost here and I feel another quilting adventure coming on! Probably not a finish, but a lot of fun for the fingers and mind.
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