Posted By FarmerJ on January 19, 2011

Since I began dabbling in quilting and sewing, along with my slowly increasing fabric stash, my thread stash has also been increasing.  I’ve been wanting a proper way to store the spools, as opposed to having them all thrown into a plastic bag.  I glanced around the craft stores and saw a couple varieties ~ some wooden ones that seemed almost spindly, and some plastic storage boxes.  Neither variety seemed to excite me too much, at least not for the price the stores wanted for them.

Several months ago, I was cleaning out a closet in the Farmstead office and came across this!  It was a wooden calendar that you slide the date and birthday cake tiles around each month.  My buddy in Arizona gave this to me when we moved to Nebraska.  She had been doing some cleaning in her attic and was going to get rid of this because she no longer had the little tiles ~ it’s not much of a calendar without the tiles, agreed?  We both thought it could find a place in the ol’ barn house…but, neither one of us knew exactly how at the time.

Then, it dawned on me.  I could turn this adorable wooden creation just longing for a purpose into my thread spool holder!  As with a lot of things, I’ll have an idea, but before I can implement it, I have to run it by my design engineer [and mover of heavy objects] to see if it’s feasible.  This one passed.

So, the first order of business was to cut the triangle trim pieces to size.  During the practicality discussion with Darling Husbie my engineer, I’d explained that I needed the dowels to be at an angle.  He remembered we had some triangle trim scraps left over from another project.  So, long ago, I’d gathered those scraps and had been guarding them sacredly.  Then, just mere hours before I was ready to finally use them, Darling Husbie had them in position to snap over his knee for kindling in the wood stove.  “No, no, no, no, no!”, I screeched…er…shrieked…er…exclaimed.

So, anyway, I started out cutting the trim pieces with a little craft saw.  It was slow going and left rough edges that would need sanded.  Then, another thing dawned on me.  Darling Husbie has a bunch of nice power saws in his shop.  It would be worth tromping through the snow to use one of those saws!  Husbie happened to be out there working on a much larger project we started last weekend.  He suggested I use the band saw.  I was all set with my safety glasses, but I think Husbie was a little afraid to let a girl use his saw.  He took the trim scraps from my hand and risked his own fingers to make my precision cuts.

Then, the next order of business was to drill 1/4-inch holes into the triangle trim pieces.  Husbie just happens to have a nice drill press that could make easy work of the 43 holes needing drilled.  He lovingly proceeded to show me how to align the trim piece in the vise, line up the laser over my dot, and even how the automatic drill stop worked so that I would not drill too far into my piece of wood.  Cool!  I was all set with my safety glasses, but I think Husbie was a little afraid to let a girl use his drill.  He took the trim pieces from my hand and risked his own fingers to make my precision holes.

Once the holes were drilled, it was time to paint!  I tried staining the pieces with some varnish we had left over from the pantry project, but it was nowhere near dark enough.  So, I decided to paint them with some brown craft paint I’d picked up quite some time ago on clearance at JoAnn’s.  Husbie commented about being surprised I wasn’t going to use my beloved RustOleum Hammered Bronze.  Oh, no ~ I couldn’t waste it on a project such as this since so little of the trim pieces will even be seen when the spools are in place!

Blowing snow and 9 degrees ambient temperature sort of hinders any plans to paint outdoors.  So, I carefully laid out several pieces of newspaper on the floor, taking care to cover enough space to prevent any over spray mishaps.  I was all set with my safety glasses, but I think Husbie was a little afraid to let a girl spray paint in the house…in the office…on white carpet.  He took the trim pieces from my hand and ‘kindly suggested’ I move my project out to the kitchen…on the wood floor…dark brown in color.  He then risked his own fingertip and painted my pieces brown.

I just realized I don’t have a photo of the next step ~ gluing the trim pieces onto the adorable wooden creation just longing for a purpose.  I’d found some TiteBond II Wood Glue on the shelf above the dryer, which surpassed the durability requirements for my project, according to my engineer.  I was all set with my safety glasses…can you believe it?!  I got to use the glue!  We let it sit overnight with some heavy books on it to keep the trim pieces from warping while the glue dried.

The next day arrived, and it was time to cut the wooden dowels.  My engineer had returned to his day job, so I was home alone…with a saw.  But, I wore my safety glasses.  And, I still have all my typing fingers.

After that, it was time to sand the ends of the dowels.  I thought about using that band saw of Husbie’s to get nice clean cuts, but then thought wiser about it.  So, I used 60# sandpaper, instead.  Oh yeah, and I wore my safety glasses.  I was really getting anxious by now!

The time had finally arrived to place the dowels into position.  I was going to use the TiteBond II again, but Husbie thought that would be overkill.  He suggested I use my hot glue gun.  After all, it doesn’t need to have the strength of Fort Knox.  I’m glad I took his advice, because dealing with extra glue from the hot glue gun once it cooled was a lot easier than having to wipe any excess TiteBond away before it dried.  Sshhhhhh…I didn’t wear my safety glasses.

So, here you have it.  The once wooden calendar turned thread spool holder.  I think the two rows of dowels at the top will be ideal for storing my bobbins.

Cute, yes?  I love the fact that it’s made entirely from stuff we already had ~ with the exception of two 1/4-inch dowels I had to purchase for a whopping .58 cents total!  I love the fact that it reminds me of my buddy in Arizona.

I almost wish I could say I did this project on my own ~ but I absolutely love the fact that my beloved Husbie helped me.  ♥

Categories: She ~Tries~ To Be Creative
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