My grandmother, an immigrant from Lithuania, was an unbelievably talented seamstress. She did everything by hand, including free-hand embroidery, tatting, and crocheting. She never needed a pattern; you could just sketch something and she would create it. It was the sewing equivalent of the musician's 'hum a few bars.' Her vividly artistic creations seemed to flow from her fingers like water from a pitcher. In fact, as a young child, I thought everyone had handmade and hand-embroidered sheets and pillowcases and dresser cloths and curtains, and, and, and... I was shocked the first time I slept over at a friend's house and saw her sheets were (gasp!) plain white. My grandmother's influence is likely a big part of why I love the idea of antique linens, and why I steadfastly refuse to give up my dresser cloth.

Put your feet up and ponder this age-old question: what's the difference between a footstool and an ottoman? Besides the fact that an ottoman sounds way fancier than a footstool, the only real differences are: 1) an ottoman is always upholstered (footstools needn't be), and 2) sometimes an ottoman has another job: large ones fill in as coffee tables and hollow ones can open up and act as storage boxes. Our ottoman was a favorite kitty perch and had definitely seen better days. Why buy new when you can make a simple cover? Home décor sewing to the rescue!

You'll see from our instructional photos below that we made this jazzy ironing board cover while working in our booth at January's CHA Craft Super Show. So I don't want to hear any more whining about having no time and no space to sew. This tutorial is proof positive you can have success in the smallest of areas. An ironing board cover might seem like a rather mundane project, but think about it – you look at your ironing board a lot. Wouldn't it be easier on the eyes if it had a cheery cover?