Sew: DIY A Thrifty Portable Pressing Mat {Turn Almost Any Surface into an Ironing Board}

Mummy Ask has a two storey house. A very neat house, with everything in it’s place. And the place for the ironing board is in a cupboard upstairs.  Going upstairs to get the ironing board, just to press one seam, is hard. And Mum hates the messy look of the ironing board too. Well, maybe we are just a bit lazy! Regardless, I decided to make Mum an ironing mat for downstairs. I thought she deserved a little surprise!

The last thing I wanted to do was melt Mums kitchen counter, so I consulted various tutorials first. There was (as always) plenty of different ways to make one and lots of conflicting advice. I already had Insul-Bright (an insulated batting for both heat & cool) and thought I had some left over wool batting from my wooden ironing board cover. But of course, I’d tossed the wool. I couldn’t bear to head to Spotlight when I knew it would be busy and the traffic would awful. A back road trip to the op shop was the answer to that problem. I grabbed two 100% cotton baby blankets and got to work. Work with what you have or can get second hand. Towels, several layers of flannelette or blankets will work fine as long as they are 100% cotton or wool. Synthetics will melt! And you’ll definitely need Insul-Bright.

I decided to make my mat half the size of the smallest blanket, which had a bound edge. I trimmed away bound edge, to reduce bulk. I folded it in half and used the already rounded corners as template to cut the corners of the folded edge. I used that blanket as a template to cut the second blanket to size, leaving me with 4 blanket layers. Using one of the blanket pieces as a template, I cut one piece of Insul-Bright. I then made a sandwich, thin blanket, thicker blanket, insul-bright, thicker blanket, thin blanket. The instructions on the insul-bright say that the most metallic side should be against the heat, so I marked that side for later by writing ‘This Side Up’ in sharpie.

Some say you should quilt, some say you shouldn’t pierce the insul-bright as it reduces effectiveness. As I am lazy and my machine hates layers, I opted not to quilt. But I did pin around the open edges and then sew a rough zig zag around, just inside the raw edges to hold the layers together. After sewing, I trimmed anything that didn’t look right due to shifting while sewing.

As to the cover/finishing, many tutorials say to cut two pieces of cotton as exterior fabric, the size of the wadding piece plus seam allowance. And then sandwich the wadding between them and use bias binding to cover the raw edges. I knew that doing that, with my machine, I would be pushing my luck. Plus I was making this for a clean freak who would want to be able to wash the cover. Regularly. So, I made a removable cover from the same cotton canvas/duck that I used in the dog bed and this handbag. I decided to make a cover with a zipper opening. Due to the round corners, putting the zipper in the short end seemed difficult. Putting one on the back meant potential scratching from the zipper rubbing on whatever it was placed on. The answer was a zipper flap! So easy, it’s exactly the same as my kitty cushions but this time shaped to my wadding lining. For easy storage, I also trapped some velvet ties in seam of one end, so the mat can be rolled up. Mum is a sucker for velvet!

If you’ll remember, this was a small surprise gift for Mummy Ask and this is what she has to say about it:

So there you have it folks! It’s small to store, easy to travel with, works perfectly for pressing seams and even ironing garments, works on most flat surfaces, is washable and can be made from stuff you have hanging around or something thrifted! And it was very quick and easy to make! How handy for travel or if you go to ASG or other sewing meetings or retreats? I’ve proven it’s a great gift too! Are you off to make one now? Or do you have another awesome pressing solution? Let me know xxxxxx