Utility Sewing

Today my sewing tasks were mundane, but necessary. I made a new ironing board cover for my "new" vintage ironing board and finished one last detail on the Divine Miss Em's new feeding bag.

First, the bag, as it is the most important to our daily life. The bag that came with the pump was black plastic and nylon and held up about three years before it started coming apart. We could have simply bought a new one, but seriously, what was the fun in that? Besides, we needed to solve a problem in that we had too many bags hanging from the back of her wheelchair, making it difficult to get to the brake and tilt.  We needed a way to keep the feeding bag and pump in her backpack (a new pretty raspberry colored bag from Lands End.)

I found a clear bag from a set of sheets that I had purchased and discovered that the pump fit neatly in one corner with just enough room for the bag to hang beside it.  I used the same configuration as the original bag for securing the feeding bag.

The back of the bag is a double layer of Timtex covered with leftover quilting cotton from a past project.  The project ended up so thick that the only machine that could handle it was my Singer 15-88 treadle.  I used a size 14 denim needle and the machine went through all the layers like they were butter.

The empty bag.  It's not really a bag but a holder but I don't really know what to call it.

The bag with the feeding bag installed.

Two layers of thick Timtex were not enough to keep the feeding bag upright, a necessity to keep the tubing from filling up with air.  Today, I added a pocket on the bag to hold two pieces of cardboard to further stiffen the bag.  The pocket will work better than encasing the cardboard so the bag can be washed.  It will happen that the bag will fail  and the whole mess will need to be washed, so best to be prepared.

The final product.  It still does not prevent the formula from leaking if (actually when) the bag fails, so I will need to find a better clear bag eventually.

We've used it a week and so far it seems to do the job.  Hopefully with the cardboard, the bag won't slump and pinch the bottom of the bag.


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The other sewing was to make a new cover for the "new" ironing board.  Here is the board in all its configurations:

As an ironing board

As a chair

I 

and as a stepladder

I wanted to use wool as the padding and found some fulled wool jersey in my diaper stash that I had originally planned to use as diaper covers.  Since I am not using cloth diapers any longer, there was no need to hang on to them and the pieces were too small to use for anything else.  I ended up piecing them together to make them long enough to fit the board:

Here you can see pieces of the old batting.  The cover the ironing board came with was a stained and ripped blue print that had been stapled to the board.  I removed all that and replaced the batting with the wool pads. 

The new cover is a cream colored twill that I bought from Wal-Mart with the idea that I would use it to make pants for myself.  I've used it instead to make bags and now this.  I have enough left to make pants for one of the girls. 

I may need to make some adjustments to keep it snug on the board, but for now it is done.