Necessity.. The Mother of Invention...

Necessity and to be honest, and a bit of jealousy is the mother of this invention.  While my sewing studio is still in the planning stages for the basement of our house (crossing my fingers for this spring) the B&S quilt room continues to be my families dining room.
 
I've got a fairly good set up here with my sewing machine on the dining room table and two 6 foot folding rectangle tables that act as my ironing and cutting stations and when necessary get pushed together for large work and basting when I choose not to assemble the quilting frame and long arm finish a project.  All in all, It's a setup that works... especially when compared to the 32 inch round table this quilting venture started from.

Well, the jealousy part comes from my visits to my sister's workroom.  She runs a very successful business of fabricating high end draperies, and pretty much anything else she or a decorator can think of to be made out of fabric.  I go to her work area often and get advise or search through the rolls and rolls of left over fabrics.  She's made her self a work table, a ginormous work table, and in the past I've gone there to lay out projects on her work surface as you can iron and pin on it.. it's sturdy... it's virtually indestructible.

There's no way I could fit a table like hers into my dining room and for quilting it would really be overkill but trying to maneuver 44 inch wide quilting cotton onto a tiny ironing board is also not ideal.

So, seeing as I am terrified of the power saw, I enlisted the help of my workroom handyman, who also happens to be my husband.  I had him cut a piece of plywood to the width of one of my tables and nearly the length (48 inches) saving me several feet at the end of the table.






He then had the idea of rounding the corners to match the corners of the table and cut in this handy handle that will end up on the bottom for my fingers to go in when I lift the finished board.

I then went back to my sewing guru and asked what to cover it with.  I needed something that I can iron on and that would also not get damaged or grow mildew when it gets wet or hit with a lot of steam.  The materials that I would need you can order online or just get at your local fabric / craft store; 'Worktable Padding' and 'Canvas Worktable Covering' (or some places call it duck cloth).  It comes in 60 inch widths, so for this project I didn't need a lot and it could be done fairly cheaply.

I laid out the pad that would go underneath and cut that to the exact size.

I then cut the cover cloth slightly larger than the plywood and began to power staple it up around the sides, starting with opposite sides and stretching it as I went along.

The finished board on my table.  As you can see I left the space at the end to fit my little ironing board that I had been using when I do quilt piecing.

I like having both on the table as you can see the board can accommodate a standard 44 inch width of quilting cotton while small piecing can still be ironed without moving larger fabric on the smaller board.  This was a very easy and inexpensive project and really saves me time while quilting as I don't need to keep moving fabric to properly iron it as I had before because a full width didn't fit on my small ironing board.