Okay, the subject today is a horrible pun. Today I wanted to show off the pressing tools that Jay has made me for my sewing room. Since all of September is National Sewing Month I’m doing my best to relate all posts back to sewing in some fashion. It may get a little trickier in the next few weeks, though.

First off, we have some progress on the Airplane Lean-To.

Friday evening Jay fitted the plywood to the wall frames and I painted them.

I had left over porch paint, so that’s why they are gray. Also, our house is gray so I hoped it would help them to blend in.

We also fitted the floor plywood and I painted that as well.

Then, of course, we had a terrific thunderstorm overnight (despite the fact that none of the weather I listened to mentioned anything about it). Luckily, the walls and floor were okay. So we soldiered on.

I helped Jay stand the walls up and then I worked on other yard projects while he worked on the roof.

When we were originally discussing this project I told him that it had to be below the window. It barely makes it! You look out the window and all you see is roof.

Have I told you how lucky I am that Jay loves me? I am constantly going to him and asking, “Would you be able to make me something like this?”

A Sleeve board.

This sleeve board can be found on Amazon for $40. It is made by Newhouse Specialty Co. I have wanted a sleeve board for a while just for the simple fact that when I’m making smaller things like purses or bags, it would be nice to have a smaller board that the purse could actually fit over for pressing. So one night I was doing some research online and came across this blog with files that you can actually download and use for templates. I quickly downloaded the file and printed it out. After showing Jay a finished picture and explaining how it was used and how I was going to use it he whipped up a sleeve board.

I wanted a really deep throat on it in case I have longer sleeves or a deeper bag to iron on this. I also explained that the arm has to be able to support some pressure being placed on the end of the diving board.

I am very happy with how it turned out. I will do some finishing sanding on it and then cut some cotton batting and flannel to pad the top. I like the big, flat bottom because I really only need the one smaller surface for ironing. This should work perfectly.

The next pressing tool that I wanted: Tailor’s Point Presser

This particular one looks like it’s made of oak. It can be purchased on Amazon for $34.95. It is made by Jackson’s Woodworks, LLC. A quick glance at their site shows a lot of well-made pressing tools. Luckily, I have my own woodworker in house. I found a template for one of these on Serger Pepper‘s blog. I downloaded the pdf, printed it off and gave it to Jay. Again, I showed him a finished picture and explained why I wanted it.

He used the template that I gave him and I think it looks great. He’s worried about how pointy the nose looks, but I like it. I need to do some finishing sanding so I can round it out a bit, but I wanted it a bit pointier so that when I’m turning things inside-out I can use it to better press the corners.

This picture makes it look a little pointier, but I’m going to sand it down a bit. Don’t worry. I won’t put my eye out with it.

Didn’t he do a great job? Considering he’d never laid eyes on these kinds of tools before I showed him the templates, he did a wonderful job. I am incredibly lucky to have such talent at my disposal. If you’re interested, I will rent him out for a small fee. 😉