"A Gift From Jonathan......."

I had searched online many times (as my weaving stash grew) for a spool rack that I could mount on the side of one of my shelving units. All I found online were freestanding spool racks, which are great, but I didn't want to take up anymore precious floor space in my fiber room.

I finally asked Jonathan (our former neighbor who now lives in North Dakota) if he would make me one, and to my delight, he agreed to do so.

Thanks to his wife, Maniphone, I have a few photos from "The Construction Period". ;) Here is Jonathan out in his workshop, drilling holes for the pegs, which will hold individual spools of yarn.

If I am not mistaken, the drilling of the angled peg holes was the hardest, most technical, part of the entire project.

Jonathan had to fashion a "jig" so that he could consistently drill at the same angle. This is what he came up with, which obviously worked quite well, eh? ;)

After the angle was set, he finished drilling each peg hole........

It obviously took a steady hand to achieve this line up, eh? :)

The spool rack about to be dis-assembled, packaged, and shipped. We'd discussed, via emails, about a finish on the rack, but decided it would be best if I did that on this end.

The spool rack arrived last Friday afternoon!

Jonathan had done an excellent job in packing it, so it arrived in pristine condition.

Here I am inserting pegs at the beginning of happy hour......

I'd wanted to display my new spool rack during happy hour, so set it up and added some spools of yarn for effect. :) Neighbor Rob (professional painter/finish expert/http://www.sprucepainting.com/) and I discussed some possibilities for finishes, one of which I chose, so my thanks to Rob for the help in making that decision.

I'd rubbed the new spool rack with Teak Oil, which I found the next morning in our "paint and finish department", downstairs. ;) It brought out a nice warm glow in the wood. I unloaded the shelving unit, clamped the spool rack to it's side so that I could drill into and through the side of the storage unit, using Jonathan's pre-drilled mounting holes, then bolted the spool rack in place.

Here it is mounted, with the shelving unit back in it's place.

It didn't take long before it was loaded up with spools of brightly colored mercerized cotton (which I use for weaving kitchen towels), some of my rayon chenille (more on the shelves, too), with a few spools of sock yarn added for good measure, too.

I'm sure when you look at this photo, you think, "it really doesn't look any different than it did before". In one respect, that is true, but thanks to the new spool rack, I now have all of my spools of yarn and warp in one area. Before, some spools were in this shelving unit, and others were across the room in another shelving unit. It is so nice to have them all in one place and together. Of course, now I will have to suppress the urge to buy more since I have the extra open shelving, eh? ;)

Here is the final re-organization of the fiber room. Much the same as before, but also different.

On top of all the benefits that this new spool rack has given me, Jonathan "gifted" the rack to me as well! The man is not only a Master Woodcrafter, but a Saint, too! My sincere thanks to Jonathan for this wonderful gift. (I hope he has kept his notes/drawings on the making of this rack......"just in case".) ;)