My ironing board

Happy Mother's Day! Well, I'm not his mother but yesterday Tetsu gave me a mother's day present. An ironing board!

I've been wanting an ironing board for ages and ages. In fact, it has been something that I have coveted ever since I got married. And I don't even iron! Well, I don't iron clothes. I only iron quilts and quilt blocks.

It's not like I didn't have an ironing board. I've written about my ironing board before. It is only 20 inches long and after putting the iron on it, that only gave me about 10 inches of ironing space. It was impossible to iron long seams or flimsys and I often used the carpet to iron things.

A couple of months ago I specifically took one of my quilts to Mrs. Furui's because she had a wonderful stand up/fold away, LONG ironing board. (She acquired it when she lived in Germany.)

"Mrs. Furui, I need to use your ironing board to iron my flimsy. I messed up my carpet when I ironed on it the last time."

"Tanya, my ironing board broke! Now I can only use the board part and iron off of the floor."

Mrs. Furui is in worse shape than I am! How can two of us rather prolific quilters live without an ironing board? I took a picture of Mrs. Ochiai trying to iron bias off of the floor that day.

It is possible to order a stand up/fold away, long ironing board in Japan. Mrs. Furui and I have both priced them and both of us have come to the conclusion that $130 for an ironing board is too much!!! So I use my minuscule ironing space and Mrs. Furui irons off the floor.

When Tetsu was rearranging my sewing room for me last month he noticed the melted marks from where I had ironed on the carpet.

"Tetsu, I really need an ironing board and even if it costs a lot I think I'll go ahead and buy one."

He wanted to know how long and how high it needed to be and declared that he would MAKE me one.

Hmm.. I don't really think that will work. How do you make the board part? Do I really want another piece of furniture in that room? But much like I like to make quilts by hand for people, Tetsu wanted to give me a hand made ironing board so there went my dreams of a convenient, pull out when you need it, expensive ironing board.

Tetsu came home early from work yesterday and set up his carpentry area in the yard. And THIS is the result of 4 hours of carpentry, two store bought ironing boards (no legs, just boards), a hand saw, two-by-four planks, and no measure. Tetsu is a WONKY carpenter. Cut off when too long, nail on extra when too short.

"Tetsu, this is WONDERFUL! It is sturdy, and long, and I can put stuff under it!"

A treasure and one I will use daily! Who needs modern ironing boards when I have a gift of love!

I'm sorry Mrs. Furui, as much as Tetsu admires you I don't think he'd be willing to do this again.