Ironing Board Discovery

This is my ironing board.  I picked it out as my birthday present from an antique store about 14 years ago. I have always loved it's wooden intricate braces that are a bit of a puzzle when opening and closing it.  I also loved the pattern on it's floral cover... Let's call it Cute Cover. But I do use this ironing board, not that I do loads of ironing but still after 14 additional years of heat wear and tear added to Cute Cover, it's reached it's end.   Several tears and rips have started appearing and grow a bit larger each time the iron accidently snags one.

As luck would have it, I happened to find a cute vintage, but in excellent shape, replacement for only a couple of bucks at a thrift last week.  It's a bit large but I am sure I can make it work.

I have never spent alot of time under my ironing board, as I wouldn't expect many have.  Here is an upshot of the underside done by it's previous owner, with it's complicated, almost frantic, gathering of fabric and safety pins anchoring sides together with elastic that lost it's snap before I ever came along. I guess who ever had Cute Cover before me had experienced the "It's a bit large but I am sure I can make it work", just as I spoke of.

While trying to figure out how to approach this perplexing web, I noticed some dried out masking tape running along the underside...and then noticed that partly obscured were some handwritten letters.  I peeled the tape away, with not much effort and saw this:

 XMAS 1938

It had been a gift for someone else in 1938! I felt like I had just discovered an ancient Egyptian tomb and was reading it's hieroglyphs, I was so excited.   

I also realized that the tape had a purpose and that there is a crack down the middle of the ironing board. It's nothing a bit of new tape can't handle...I am sure I can make it work.

So here is the new Cute Cover II almost in place. I decided to follow lead from the first owner and using safety pins and tucking fabric here and there, I rigged the new cover in place. I decided to leave Cute Cover I under it, kind of like layers that would be dug through in archaeology. I am thinking about adding my own handwritten date on the bottom that says "Birthday 1999".