A few years ago, my husband was nice enough to bring home from work a table that was headed for the garbage. It's pretty beat up and the top of the table is a bit sketchy, but it's big and solid and has adjustable legs - perfect for quilting. I've had it pushed up against the wall in my sewing room all this time, but recently decided to try it in the center of my room and I love it. We even added a shelf across the bottom of the table that's big enough to hold my batting, several bins of fabric, and my lap quilting frame. It works really well, but it doesn't look that great.
Another problem in my sewing room is that my overworked quilt rack can't hold any more pressed quilt tops, quilt backs, or binding strips. I'd hang curtain rods or towel bars to use for storage, but I don't have any available wall space.
But the other day, my daughter and I were in Home Depot and in a moment of DIY clarity, inspiration struck. Why not use the edge of my table to hang fabric and quilts in progress, keeping them flat while simultaneously hiding the storage shelf. Ta-da!
Here's what we came up with:
We bought two screw eyes and a 36" long - 3/4" diameter dowel rod. We pre-drilled holes (34" apart) in the edge of the table before screwing in the screw eyes to prevent the wood from splitting. The screw eyes are pretty heavy duty, so it was a bit hard to screw them into pre-drilled holes, but once we got them started, we were able to use a screw driver inserted into the screw eye hole as a handle for turning - much easier. We inserted the dowel rod through both screw eyes and presto!
Now I have a curtain around the table and hanging storage that acts as a visual reminder of what I'm working on. And it's pretty! I liked it so much that I added two more. As a final touch my husband added a few screws to one end of the table so I can hang my quilting rulers. Perfect! And to think it only took four years!