Follow this quick and easy tutorial on how to make your own mini ironing table! These are great to set up next to you while you are sewing and make great gifts for your quilty friends! They also fold flat and are easy to store away when not in use! It only took me about 30 minutes to make this one- so what are you waiting for?
supplies you need for your mini ironing table
Prepping Your Supplies
Before you start making your mini ironing table you should do a few things. First, remove any sickers, tags, or wrappings from your TV tray. Second, fill your staple gun with staples. Make sure they are heavy duty ones. Third, make sure that your batting and fabric pieces are bigger than the top of your TV tray. They need to be able to cover the top and wrap around to the back. If you have a true FQ, it should be plenty.
Lay out your fabric face down with the batting on top. You’ll want to double up your batting to help protect the wood table top from the heat of your iron. Flip your TV tray so that the table top is face down and place it on your fabric and batting. Position the tray so that it is centered on the fabric. Make sure that each edge of fabric has enough room to wrap around to the back of the table top.
Trim the batting at each corner so that there is only about an inch of clearance from the table top. Be sure that you are ONLY trimming batting and not the canvas fabric.
Making your mini ironing table
Now we are ready to put the mini ironing table together! Starting along one edge, wrap the layers of batting and fabric over to the back. Make sure not to pull too much so that you are leaving enough room for the same on the opposite side of the tray. With one hand, hold the fabric in place while you press the staple gun down (keep those pretty fingers out from under the staple gun). Do this all along one side, stopped a few inches away from the corner.
The corners are a little tricky, but this is where having trimmed the batting will come in handy! You first need to pull the corner of the fabric up toward the corner of the mini ironing table. While holding that in place, bring up the edge of fabric that you were just stapling into place. Make sure that everything is snug. Do the same to the next side of the try. Staple several times over the cover to make sure it is secure.
FINISHING THE MINI IRONING TABLE
Continue pull fabric around to the back and stapling in place. Once you have to sides up, you can pull the last two sides more firmly to make sure that it is securely in place and the fabric wont shift. When you have stapled everything in place, trim the fabric and batting as close as you can so that nothing is hanging down or lose when you set up your mini ironing table.
And that’s it! Now you can set it up and have your own mini ironing table right next to your sewing machine.
Once you have your new mini ironing table all set up, there are a few tools I recommend that you use with it! The first is a mini iron! I love the Oliso Mini. You also need a good wood clapper to help your seams come out nice and crisp! I got mine from Modern American Vintage.
Want to see how I turned the top of a side cabinet into a full length ironing table? Check out my other blog!
