Lois, Margo told us of the covering she uses for her large ironing space. The piece I bought is 30 inches wide by 60 inches long to fit the table I have. I have a piece of 3/4 inch plywood that I use, that is 30" x 50", I tuck under the ends on each end, and when I'm not ironing, my cutting board is on top of it and I can use it as is. I don't have to have an ironing board set up at all. It is wonderful. I'm sure Margo will kick in here with the name of the product (I can't find the invoice this morning!)

I see Nancy will have an answer too!

Thank you Nancy!

I got 3/4" plywood because the thinner ones were already warped at the hardware store, so mine will be very heavy but will hopefully hold up for a long time. I use a lot of steam so am very worried about warping. I'll be using that special padding that I picked up at the time of the earlier discussion since I knew I was going to make this at some point. I'll get the package and post the name later today.

I have made two ironing surfaces. One is very large and I place it on top of my ironing board. It's wide enough to handle home dec fabrics. It's bigger than the ironing board and it does not tip. However, it is at least 1/2" thick plywood. It's heavy and I am sure that adds to its stability. I use it with steam and over the years it has warped ever so slightly. It's heavy and cumbersome to move when I want to use the ironing board without it. I've made another smaller one out of 1/4" plywood to use on my cutting table. It warped significantly soon after I made it. I think the thickness and weight of the board you use will contribute to its stability.

I am interested in knowing more about what you are going to choose as padding. I like one layer of a rather firm cotton batting like warm and natural. I have used a medium weight cotton canvas for the cover. I remember reading about coverings that work better for quilters somewhere on this Forum ages ago. I would like to know more about coverings/paddings. I hope other chime in here. If people have use the special covering discussed here in the past I would like to know how they liked it. I would like to know its name too. I think they got it from a distributer in Georgia. Hard to search for it if you don't know what it's called.

Good luck, Nancy and Debbie with your projects.

Ha! Now that's a brilliant suggestion that I hadn't thought of myself. Thanks, I'll definitely do that!

Hi Debby -

I'm in the process of doing the same thing. My desk top is 24" x 40", but I'm going to make my pressing board 24" x 48" so that I can get a full width of fabric across it when pressing. I think it will be fine because I'll put the feet close to the edges of the desk top and will be careful to put my hand in the middle of the board on those times when I am pressing at the edges. Of course, this is just a plan so far and you are planning on having a bit more length off the edge of your desktop, so I don't know how helpful this is. One thing you could do is get the plywood the size that you are thinking of and set it on the desktop and push down on the edges to see how stable it is. If it feels too unstable to you, you could cut it down to a smaller size.

I have a desk that is going to be my multi-purpose work surface in my new studio. The dimensions are 32X44. I am planning to cut a piece of plywood to make a large ironing surface that I will place on this desk when I need a larger ironing surface. My question is: can I cut the plywood to hang over the edge of the desk (like 32x64) or is that just asking for trouble (like will it tip over when I am in the midst of ironing?) Any advice would be appreciated! FYI, I mostly make small art quilts, but once in a while I do work on a larger one.