Creating a new Pressing Surface

Way back, deep in the closet, a world map was lurking. It once belonged to my boys, it is old and outdated.....figured it really should head to the trash pile.  But wait!...maybe it could be re-purposed.

Once the narrow metal frame was stripped from it, I was left with a strong, flat, very nice sized, 2' x 3'  piece of Masonite.  I gathered my supplies and set out to create my new pressing surface.

I knew that I wanted to have a double thickness of batting  ( I am using Warm and Natural cotton) I also wanted to be sure that once it was all assembled, the two layers of batt would not shift during the pressing process, so I stitched them together. To do this, I marked a grid (with disappearing ink) and and simply straight stitched along the lines.

Now my 2 batts could act as one layer. I trimmed the inner one ( ultimately the top batt) so that it was just a tiny bit larger than my piece of Masonite and the outer one an inch or so bigger to allow it to wrap around the board.

I wanted to be certain the fabric serving as the outer surface would be smooth and taught so I taped it in place before laying the rest of the layers on top

Now, I was ready to begin pulling it all together. I began by folding and stapling at each corner.

Then stapling at the center of each side and working my way around the whole piece gently tugging to keep everything fairly snug. once all the staples were in place, I gave each one a tap with the hammer.

The next step, was to add something on the back to cover the staples and provide a nice clean "backing". A large piece of felt and double sided tape would do nicely for this. The tape was placed just inside the dimensions of the felt measurement (paper still on the top side) I removed the paper at one short end and firmly stuck the felt down. To make sure I would have no problem getting the felt placed onto the rest of sticky tape (you only get one shot at it ) I used a dowel to roll it all up out of the way.

Removed all of the remaining paper from the tape and then easily rolled the felt back down and into place

so now instead of an outdated, rather useless map in the closet (or on its way to the dump) I now have a nice new pressing surface

of course, I wasn't stopping there. I always like to have a clean surface to work on so I made a pillowcase of sorts ( made it very tight fitting so everything remains taught and flat as possible)

The casing can be flipped, washed, or changed out entirely if I need to

Linking up to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Fridays