Pressing Matters: The Elna Press

You know how they say, if you write out what you want it's x number of times more likely to come true?

I wrote about wanting an Elna Press in this post, and my dreams have come true.

The ElnaPress Alize.

My parents read my blog post and then hopped over to ebay where they snagged this one for Christmas.

I saw the Elna Press in action in Janet Pray's "Sew Better, Sew Faster" Craftsy class and was AMAZED.  You might even say I was impressed (ha ha ha ha ha).  Plus velosewer, who is the fastest seamstress I know, owns one, so it has to be one of the secrets of her speediness.


I tried it out yesterday when I made another NYC subway zipper pouch.  Here I'm ironing  pressing on the interfacing:

Perfectly pressed!

It makes ironing  pressing on the interfacing a breeze because it takes all of 10 seconds to fuse the interfacing to the fabric!!! And it times it for you and beeps to let you know when it's ready.

So it's speedy + times it for you + really fuses the interfacing to the fabric. Yay!  I wish the surface was a bit larger, but I think this will speed up part of the sewing process.

It does not have a light, the sleeve board, or the "vap o jet" (it's a dry press, so I use a spray bottle to spritz) but it is still pretty awesome.

Here I'm ironing pressing some corduroy. I know, I know, crushing the nap. But this is for pillows. And I suspect those who disapprove of my dodgy sewing techniques long ago stopped reading this blog.

This is the pillow I'm working on.
Fabric pressed.
Interfaced pressed (you can see the interfacing on the bottom left piece)
Fabric raw edges serged.
My inspiration leaves....


And my zipper pouch:

the zipper

The inside

If you own the Elna Press, do you have a stand for it? If yes, which one? I'm thinking of either buying a pressing stand or buying another tall Ikea table for it. It will live where the pile of fabric used to be against the wall.

Be well!