Thread Spool Device, II

As promised yesterday, here are photos of my newest achievement.
This is the basic construction, with all the metal holders put into place, On the spur of the moment I decided to go for an alternating arrangement of the holders instead of the strictly regular arrangement which I had been calculating with when ordering the holders in the hardware store. Now I have a couple left over, but as there is room for extension to the right and the left side, I am certain there will be a time when the left-over holders will also be put to use.

Right now I don't need all places because there are not quite that many spools to put up yet. But as I am planning to extend my collection to be able to offer longarm quilting with a third kind of thread as opposed to the two kinds I have right now I am sure that these holders will not remain empty very long.

Here is another pretty perspective: face on into thread spools!

I finished the binding of my first pantograph-patterned quilt, too. It is a sampler of star blocks I had been using to teach a local workshop and just never put together and finished. Now that the longarm made things so much easier, it will finally find its purpose as a donated prize for a lottery for a local organization that supports families with Down-syndrome children.

Thread Spool Device

My husband is very supportive of my quilting activities, and I have repeatedly acknowledged his advice and willingness to carry rotary irons down into thebasement, or large sewing tables up to the first floor, or to assemble longarm machines  over a series of several days.

But for various reasons (which I understand and regretfully respect) he would never make me something as beautiful as this thread spool holder, which I saw recently in Barbara Lange’s   work room. 

Her husband is a fantastic woodworker and makes all kinds of cool stuff like this. She wouldn’t rent him out, though, and to be honest I did not dare ask him directly... But as my boxes in which I had been keeping my large thread spools (and which I have written about on my German blog here) were getting too small, especially now that I stocked up on threads for the longarm machine, I figured I had to find a solution.

After some thinking and several trips to hardware stores I had made up my mind as to what I was going to do. Loosely based on the thread spool storage I had seen in the room I was teaching in in Landshut a couple of years ago, I developed a plan.

I got myself a wooden board, screws, and various pieces of equipment.

I took exact measurement

and then I started attaching six metal bars that can hold supports for shelf boards. 

The board is larger than I need right now - first calculations mentioned up to 90 spools, a number which I don't have right now, if I am correct (haven't counted, actually), but assume that I could reach in not too far a future. But I can add a few more of those metal bars. My husband's battery-driven screw-driver was very helpful, but as I have some experience in putting up shelves entirely on my own I had not expected any difficulties in this stage of the evolution of the project.  (The only difficulty I encountered was when I was trying to bring this board home from the store on my bike, and I had to throw out all my womanly pride and call my husband to come and pick me up, uh, well, the board. And then he told me he had been expecting me to call...!)

Anyway - it's finished. And I will install all the holders on it tomorrow and  put it in the workroom .

Thread spool storage

Over the last few weeks something has been happening in the back of the sewing room of the community college where I am currently teaching a patchwork class.

At first it looked as if a fakir was going to start using the classroom as well.

Last week, first items started appearing on the nails.

And this past Monday, the board looked almost like a piece of art.

Quite an ingenious way of storing your thread spools - all it is is a board hung on the back of the door.

You don't waste any wall space, you don't run danger of hurting your thread spools, because usually there is enough room between the door and the wall, even when the door is open. The only thing I don’t like about it is the open air storage approach, and thus the high possibility that they will accumulate dust quite quickly – because sewing rooms tend to be on the dusty side, no matter how often you push the vacuum cleaner through!

This doesn't even take a supporting quilter to make, though - anyone can make one herself. (Except that I have my little drawers, which keep out at least some of the dust.)