Thread Spool Holder

Hey, it's Wednesday morning and I got up early so I could post before work, see I am trying to stick to my new posting schedule.

Anyway, this is sort of a weird post. I actually started writing it back in May when I initially had Fiance start this project. But in the choice between things he gets paid for with money and things he gets paid for with my gratitude, money tends to win, so sometimes making things for me takes a long time. Especially when I insist on photographing the process. So I wrote about half this post. Then in October, I wrote a little bit more. Then we moved and got busy, and on Valentine's Day Fiance finally finished my spool holder, because we were both sort of sick of the pieces just laying around. To be honest I didn't really have anywhere to put it until then anyway. So, the instructions aren't great, but I'm going to post what I had written, and show you the finished object and sorry that by the end there aren't any pictures. I put prices for the materials that I had to buy, so you can see that if you live with a woodworker this is a delightfully inexpensive project.

Here is what I had:

We interrupt your regularly scheduled fiber arts posts to bring you something slightly different. I got tired of digging through an unorganized pile of spools of thread and trying to remember while in the fabric store if I had the right color or not for a project so I enlisted my wonderfully talented Fiance to build me a thread holder. Today I'm going to share, roughly, how "we" (which here means he) made it.

Materials:
3 1x2x96 Pine boards (about $9)
4 3/16" dowels (roughly $3.50)
finishing nails
wood glue
Self-leveling picture hangers ($1.49)
A tool which allows you to make miter cuts
tape measure
marking knife or pen
drill
clamps

I wanted four angled "shelves" that would hold 15 spools each inside of a frame. Fiance and I laied out the spools in order to get our rough measurements.

We figured our dimensions inside of our frame would be about 26.5" long by 12.5" high. This allows 1.5" for each spool and .25" space between each spool with .25" on either end as well. The height was harder to figure out because I wanted angled shelves to make it easy to remove the thread, but hard for the thread to fall off. Our shelves were .75" thick and we needed to allow for the space that they took up as well.

One of the things that Fiance has taught me is that when you cut a piece of wood you end up losing some of the length (about the width of your blade), so you only mark one cut at a time. He used a marking knife so I don't have good pictures of him measuring. A marking knife is nifty because it doesn't leave ink behind, but a pen, pencil, or sharpie works just as well.

This is what he used to make his cuts. I'm honestly not sure what it is, but it allows him to easily make straight or angled cuts, like the hand tool version of a miter saw. (When I read this bit to Fiance he informed me that it was a miter saw, just not a power tool. Apparently they have the same name.)

Fiance does this professionally so he has all kinds of nifty tools. We live in a small basement apartment and don't have a garage so he uses all hand tools in order to be quieter (we are trying to pretend that the neighbors don't know that he uses our living room as a shop space. And yes, it would be easier without the carpets, but they help muffle the sound (that is also why they are sooooo ugly)).

Pictured above are the shelves right after he cut them. Our next step was to drill the holes that the dowel would fit into. Our first mark was 1" from the edge because half of 1.5" is .75" plus .25" for spacing equals 1". Each subsequent mark would be 1.75" away from each other to allow for the 1.5" spools and .25" of space in between them. It's a little hard to see the marks in the picture, I know.

Once all the holes are marked you need to drill them out. Fiance used a friend's drill press, but it can also be done with a drill and more time and concentration. I forgot to take pictures of the holes before I put the dowels in.

I cut the dowel into three-inch pieces and fit each piece into a hole. I didn't use glue, the holes were tight enough that the dowel isn't going anywhere. I actually used a piece of wood to help pound them in. I broke one of them, so Fiance will need to drill it back out at some point.

Then Fiance made the miter cuts.

The short sides are 12.5 inches on the inside and 14 on the outside, the long sides are 26.5 inches on the inside and 28 on the outside. Nothing is fastening together yet in this picture, but for the first time I was able to lay it out almost like it would be when done.

And this is the point when we catch up to real time, from this point on I don't have any pictures of the process.

Fiance used wood glue and clamps to fasten the sides to the top of the frame. Then he spaced the spool holders (I think he eyeballed it initially then measured to make sure they were all the same but I don't know what that measurement was). He used small finish nails to hold the spool holders to the sides of the frames so they were secure but the fastener barely shows then he glued the bottom of the frame in place. 

I nailed the alligator tooth style picture hangers to the corners of the top of the frame and I hung my spool holder yesterday. Eventually, I will paint it, but, for now, I'm just happy to be able to use it.

Here is it, hanging on my wall all full of thread and being awesome:

And here is my new craft corner in all of its glory. Fiance built me the sewing table shortly after we moved in. It is not super pretty, but it did cost less than $50 and it only took him an afternoon to build. I'm really happy with it because it's the first time I've ever had a dedicated table just for sewing. I'll probably paint the table legs white at the same time I paint the spool holder, but, for now, they are both functional and I'm feeling a couple of steps closer to organized.

A Quick Catching Up

So much for my goal of posting every weekend. Monday is at least weekend adjacent though, can I have partial credit for that? No? Okay.

I've been crazy busy the last couple of weeks and I have a bunch of projects that I want to share with y'all. I'll probably do in-depth posts about them later, but for right now this is what I've been up to:

Three weeks ago I made a new laundry bag as part of my goal of decorating my bathroom. I was going to write a tutorial on how I did it, but I forgot to write down the sizes I cut the pieces to, and I forgot to take pictures as I made it, so now you just get a picture of the finished object. I like it because it's fully finished (my obsession with French seams continues) and it has handles. I don't have a washer/dryer in my apartment so the handles are particularly helpful.

I wanted to make something that would stand up on its own, I had hoped the canvas was stiff enough too, but alas, it only stands when full of clothing. I think I'm going to make a couple of channels and insert some dowels, see if that does the trick, but for the moment, it works just fine. 

And speaking of bathroom projects and black canvas here is the project I just finished today:

There will definitely be a tutorial on how I made these in the future. In the meantime, I am just so stoked about them. This is probably the most organized my bathroom has ever been, and I think they are cute to boot. 

In between these two projects I had two jam-packed weekends. 

Last weekend I spent Saturday at a friend's house for her birthday. It was a potluck dinner. I brought rolls, they were a big hit. It made me realize that I need one of those quilted casserole carriers that I made for Fiance's Mother and Sister, so I'm going to have to bump that up the priority list. 

On Sunday, I went to a Cork and Canvas event with my Mom. It was way too much fun. We each had a glass of wine and followed along with an instructor to paint Mount Rainer! I had never painted before and I had way to much fun. Here is me with my mom holding our finished paintings:

I added a sailboat to my painting because Fiance builds them when he has enough space. I hung my painting in my kitchen. I feel a bit silly about it because the rest of the artwork in my apartment is all original done by professionals or my friends who have BFA's in art. Mine looks like the first attempt that it is hanging near the rest, but I'm proud of it, so I'm going to display it, silliness be darned!

Two weekends ago was Madrona Fiber Festival. It happens in Tacoma every year, but this year was the first time I had ever gone. I had a total blast. Everyone was wearing their most impressive knitwear, I've never had so much fun ogling people's clothes. This is what I wore:

Again, there will be a longer post about the dress. I made it on Friday and woke up early Saturday morning so I could sew on the buttons before heading out the door. 

My tax return came just days before Madrona so as a special treat I allowed myself to purchase enough Brooklyn Tweed Loft to make a sweater. I've been lusting after the yarn for ages. It's a tad pricey, but it is 100% made in the USA and that is a quality that I am willing to pay extra for. 

In real life, I think the color is a bit lighter than this. It's really lovely yarn. I spent ages debating between Loft and Shelter (fingering weight or worsted) and between this color (Faded Quilt) and Long John (a lovely brick red). They didn't actually have enough in one dye lot at Madrona so I ordered it there and it was shipped to me later. It came through Churchmouse Yarns on Bainbridge Island and let me just say that that is a business I will happily be going back to. Probably for Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in Long John. When I ordered the yarn I gave them my name, number, and address and was told they would call for my credit card info when the yarn was ready to ship. Well, I ended up getting the yarn on Tuesday but because of a miscommunication with their shipping department I hadn't paid for it yet, so I called them up. Today I got a note in the mail from them thanking me for my honesty! The woman that I talked to on the phone was really lovely and so was everyone I met at Madrona. 

I'm not letting myself start knitting with it yet though. I've got two projects on the needles to finish first. 

One is a sweater in Rowen Felted Tweed. I've got the back done, and most of the front. I feel like I'm using up the yarn at an alarming rate, though. Even though I have the yardage that the pattern calls for I think I'm going to need at least two more balls of yarn. 

This is the back of the sweater:

I also need to finish the mate to this pair of socks for Fiance:

And be on the lookout for an upcoming post about my new wooden sock blocks, my new sewing table, and my thread holder. I have so many exciting things I need to share. I recognize that I'm saying this in a post that should have come two days ago, but I am really going to try to increase to two posts a week and stick with Wednesday and Saturday updates. Wish me luck!

Bath Mat

Moving is a pain in the rear, but I have been totally enjoying going from room to room in my new apartment making lists of the items that I need and sprucing up my decorating. When I was living in Everett I didn't really bother to decorate, I barely even hung any pictures because our apartment was small and dark and I just couldn't muster up the energy to care. The new apartment is awesome though, and totally worthy of decorations. 

I'm starting my redecorating in the bathroom for a number of reasons. When we moved I threw away our old shower curtain. I had had it since I was nineteen, so I was kind of bored with the pattern on it, and the contractors that had been working in our bathroom stained it with I don't even want to know what. So our first purchase for our new apartment was a new shower curtain. I would have liked to have made one myself, but it was a sort of immediate need. Fiance and I are both trying to internalize the idea that just because we can make something ourselves, doesn't mean we have to. 

So I got a cute new red black and cream shower curtain and hung it up. But the new curtain made the space seem colorless and washed out. I didn't want to shell out for new towels yet, but I did want something to bring in more color and I was given a JoAnn's gift card for Christmas, so I bought two cones of Lily's Sugar and Cream cotton in red and knit a new bathmat. 

Using two strands held together I did a three stitch wide seed stitch border and moss stitch for the middle. The texture is wonderfully soft on my feet and the red really livens up the space nicely. Using two strands of worsted weight yarn together made the knitting go super fast, it took me less than a week to knit. 

I also hung my cross-stitch cat above the toilet because it was matted with the right colors. I'm taking the red and black color scheme and running with it. Next week I will post about my new black laundry bag. 

Coffee Filter Flowers

Well, Fiance and I are mostly settled in from our move, although my sewing area still needs some attention, so this week I started working on wedding related projects. I've got two really big time-consuming type projects, one is bunting and the other is paper flowers for all of the tables. Seeing as I don't have a sewing table set up yet, I decided to start with the paper flowers.

I started off using this tutorial by Michella Marie for white paper peonies. Although I really like the look of her "peonies" I found that if I used only 5 filters instead of 10 I got a product that I think looks more like a rose and I like it even more (plus it uses half as much material which makes me happy!) So I thought I would write down how I made my coffee filter roses.

This is what the finished product looks like:

Drinking wine while making the flowers is totally optional, but I highly recommend it. ;) I would not recommend the wine that used to be in the bottle holding the flowers, though. I picked it because I wanted boat and book themed labels for the wine bottle table but the wine itself wasn't very good.

Anyway, for these flowers you will need:

- Paper coffee filters; five per flower (I bought the cheapo Kroger brand packs, $2.00 for 200 filters)

- 16 or 18 gauge wire (Confession: I'm a vendor for a company that makes wire (among other things) so I didn't pay for my wire, I just marked down some damaged packages, but if you buy the wire at a home improvement store it's only like $3.50 for 50 feet, but if you buy it at a craft supply store you will pay more for fewer feet of wire)

- Scotch tape

- wire cutters/pliers

- ruler

- scissors

-craft glue (optional)

To begin: cut a piece of wire to your desired stem length. I used 9 inches for my long stems and 6 inches for my shorter vases. Use your pliers to make a loop at one end of the wire to stop your "petals" from sliding off. 

Now grab two or three coffee filters. Two can easily be managed, three takes some effort to cut.

Fold your filters in half to create a semi-circle:

Now fold them in half again, try and get a nice point at the bottom so your center point is easy to identify later

Now fold in half again

And one last time

Now use the scissors to round the corners so you have an ice cream cone shape. This part will take some effort if you are working with three coffee filters but it's pretty easy with one or two. I also recommend cutting over a garbage can or bag or something so minimize needed clean up later. This was by far the messiest part of this project.

Now open your filters back up. Use the wire "stem" to poke a hole in the center of the filters and slid it up to the loop.

Pinch the center of the coffee filter and twist it. It takes a mix of force and gentility. You don't want to pull too hard because the loop can still rip through the filter, but you do want to get a good tight twist or your "petals" won't look right. If your filter does rip you can use a drop or two of Elmer's glue to secure it back in place. I had to do that once or twice and now I can't even pick out which flowers I fixed.

So for each of the five filters slid them on and pinch and twist the filters. After a couple of flowers you will get a feel for how to do it. Here it is with two filters:

Three filters

four filters

After you get filter number five twisted onto the wire take a piece of clear tape, about an inch and a half long and wrap it tightly around the base of the flower and onto the stem. You don't need to get a ton on the stem, I found about a quarter inch or so worked fine and keeps the petals from sliding down the stem.

Ta-Da!

I like the look of these flowers a lot. I only took pictures of the flowers I made with unbleached filters, but I've made a few with white filters as well and they look nice tucked in among the brown although I think they would look too white if it was all I used. Not sure why, but I'm not into really bright white anything. I've made about 55 flowers so far and I probably need about 200 more, although I won't know for sure until I finish collecting the other stuff for my centerpieces. 

One Year Anniversary

Cate's Crafts turned one year old yesterday. I meant to write a post, but I sort of forgot. It doesn't seem like a year has past already. I'm happy to report that I feel pretty successful with my stated goal of improving my "grown-up" wardrobe. I've got plenty of shirts to wear to work, although I would like to add a few more long sleeve button ups to the mix. I've got cute outfits to wear on weekends, and date nights. It seems like it has been a couple of months since I've looked into my closet and despaired because I had nothing to wear. All in all, I'm going to say I achieved my goal. 

Looking forward into the year to come, I think I'm going to be doing a lot more home decor sewing, I need pillows, curtains, a duvet cover, ect so look for posts like that. I'm also going to be doing a fair amount of wedding-focused crafting, for example, today, I am making paper flowers so you will see a post about that soon (and for more immediate pictures check my Instagram).

I also am going to be focusing on my fiance's wardrobe. I no longer feel like a ragga-muffin when I leave the house, but his clothes are in a pretty sad state. He has a tendency to get attached to particular clothing items when means that he wears them to bits, but then he keeps wearing them because he doesn't want to get rid of them. It is, frankly, embarrassing when he goes to his mom's house in pants that are full of holes and a sweater that got shrunk in the wash. I want to tell her over and over that I am capable of dressing him better than that. Of course, just because I make him nice things won't mean he stops wearing the tiny sweater because he likes that sweater, but I can at least try.

Catching Up With Christmas Gifts

So wow I am behind on my blog right now. I think I mentioned in previous posts that Fiance and I were in the process of moving. Moving is not conducive to writing or crafting. But things are starting to settle down; the beginning of the year madness of work is calming, we have our new apartment mostly set up, we have internet hooked up, things are getting organized.

I was going to do a separate blog post for each Christmas gift that I made this year, but since it's been so long since I posted and I'm feeling rather behind on projects I'm just going to put them all in this post, sorry, but it will be a bit long.

In the past, I've stuck to just knitting gifts, but this year I did a bit of sewing too. The first two projects that I completed were quilted casserole carriers for Fiance's mom and sister. I used the free pattern provided on Sew Desu Ne. I used a fat eighths bundle for the top of each carrier and a yard and a quarter of cotton for the bottom and handles. The bundles actually left me one square short for each carrier, but I made up the difference with fabric from the bottom.

The blue one was for my future sister-in-law, this is what the top of it looks like when laid flat. All of those triangles were a breeze with the rotary cutter that Fiance's Mom got me for my birthday.

I also made one in orange for my future mother-in-law. This is what it looks like when it's folded up to carry a dish. I am really pleased with the way these turned out and when I get some free time I think I am going to make one or two for myself as well. P.S. the handles aren't as long as they look in the photo, it's really difficult to take a picture of your own arm without getting a really skewed perspective. 

Continuing with gifts for Fiance's family: I always make stuffed animals for his nieces. I typically pick a theme and make all four stuffed animals fit within it. This year's theme was safari animals. I was going to make a zebra and a lion for two of his nieces, but I couldn't figure out how to send them to Costa Rica without it costing both parties an arm and a leg (taxes on packages are weird down there apparently). I did make an elephant and a giraffe for the two girls in Idaho. 

I did add eyes to the elephant, I just forgot to take a new picture after doing so. It's a bit creepy looking without them. I used this pattern, but I left off the tusks. I'm pretending it's because this is a female Asian elephant and they don't have tusks. It totally wasn't because I didn't have any white yarn and I was too lazy to knit tusks. Nope. That's not it at all. 

The giraffe came from this pattern. I like the look of the pattern, but boy did working on this remind me that I hate doing stranded color work. Not that it is particularly difficult, I just don't find it enjoyable to knit. Also, I forgot to add Mr. Giraffe's ears. Oops. This project took me way longer to finish than I thought it would and by the time I got to the ears I was just so done. Oh well. I think he is still cute. 

And speaking of projects that took way longer than they should have:

Before Fiance and I moved away from all our friends I loved nothing more than decorating for holidays and having people over. I had a great deal of pride and joy in our handmade Christmas decorations. I made us stockings and an adorable (if I do say so myself) advent calendar of tiny mittens and socks. My finished project is pictured below. My mom took one look at it and said she wanted the same thing for Christmas. That was three years ago. Then we moved and I lost interest in all things cute, decorative, or Christmas themed. Losing interest in something I loved so much really should have been a red flag that we needed to be back among friends. But I did try to make mom her advent calendar. By Christmas last year, I had made her three red mittens. By Christmas this year, I had made one green one. I actually knit the rest on Christmas day at her house because I felt so bad that I just hadn't been able to get myself to work on them more. So now she has twelve mittens. Maybe by next year, I can finish the twelve socks although she says she is happy with just the mittens and decorations for her tree. 

And for the last of the handmade Christmas gifts, I made Fiance a red beanie. We didn't really exchange gifts this year because of the move, but it felt wrong not to give him anything at all and he needed a new hat. The ribbing and the color are inspired by the beanies worn in "Life Aquatic" although they aren't exactly the same. Last year I made a matching one for one of Fiance's best friends. I'm still waiting for a picture of them wearing the hats together. 

And that's it. End of the Christmas gift post. I think it's the fewest handmade gifts I've ever given, but between moving stress and work stress and a general lack of interest in anything Christmas I just didn't feel like making a lot this year. I'm confident that next year will be better, though. I'm already thinking of making some new decorations and trying to decide what the next animal theme should be. I am so happy that we are back to living among friends. 

Fixing a Sweater Snag

So, It's been a while since I've posted anything. The reasons are kind of three-fold, 1) I've mostly been working on gifts, and I can't really post about them until the intended recipient gets them. 2) I've been really busy with work and 3) Fiance and I are in the process of moving so most of my crafting materials are packed up and not accessible to me. Moving is all kinds of not fun, but Fiance and I are trying to find a two-bedroom so with luck I will shortly have my very own room for crafting in, instead of taking over the table in the living/dining room and that will be awesome.

I've only got three post topics that are available right now, and of those only one has photos on my computer, so by default today, you get a tutorial on fixing a sweater snag.

Last year for Christmas I made Fiance a sweater (ha ha, boyfriend sweater curse be damned). It's a nice gray wool, worsted weight sweater. It looks very handsome on him, but it's fairly unsuitable for work because it snags easily. I've just picked out a new sweater pattern in a fingering weight that I'm hoping will snag less because it will be a tighter gauge. In the meantime, I keep fixing the snags on his sweater. It's really not too difficult and it saves the sweater from being "ruined."

For small snags sometimes just tugging on the fabric around the snag and/or tossing it in the wash will even out the tension, but sometimes you get a doozy of a snag, and for that you need a smallish knitting needle (I used a size 2 double point because I had one laying next time me)

As you can see in the picture Fiance managed to pull a long snag and it created a ridge along the collar line. 

Step one in order to fix this to use your knitting needle to pull on the stitch next to the snag. This will pull the snagged yarn and help you create two snag loops. Basically, what you have to do to fix a snag is redistribute the yarn across the row that has been pulled tight. It's important to split your snag and distribute the yarn to the right and left of the snag in order to fix the whole row. 

And then you are going to go along the right row and just keep pulling at the stitches, leaving them looser and shortening the snag loop as you move.

You can see in this shot and although we started with roughly equal loops now the left one is shorter than the right as I've moved to the left.

And eventually, you will run out of loop altogether.

If you find it easier you can move your loop to the front of the sweater (for normal human being it will probably start out on the front, as close as I can figure Fiance must have put his sweater on inside out). 

And with a little bit of patience, your sweater will be healed! It took be about twenty minutes to fix the snag, and that was with a lot of stopping to take pictures.

Fiance is nervous about wearing the sweater while working now because he doesn't want to ruin it, but in this case, it was an easy fix. I'm just going to have to make him another sweater though because all his others are too short and they look silly.