Sewing Organization

I am about as close as you can get to being six feet tall...without actually being six feet tall. I consider being (almost) six feet tall pretty average these days. However, I have the hardest time finding shirts that fit me because I have a long and slender torso, long arms, and a long, skinny neck. For as long as I can remember, I've had dress shirts in my closet that didn't quite fit me. If it was long enough for me to tuck in, the neck was too large (I suppose under the assumption that most men with long torsos have large necks); and if it was skinny enough for me around the neck, the sleeves were too short (men with skinny necks obviously must have short arms); and if it was long enough in the arms, it was too large around the mid-section (you guessed it, men with long arms presumably have larger guts).

After about four years of being married and just a few months after my wife really started getting into sewing, I had a brilliant idea! I grabbed three of my dress shirts from the closet that I've had for the longest time but practically never wear, and I asked her if she could take them in. She had never done that before, but it seemed easy enough. We had ourselves a fitting right there in our bedroom.

Fifteen minutes later, I had three new dress shirts that fit me perfectly. 

Speaking of sewing...my wife's sewing things have been stuffed in large bins and small cans all over our closet for the longest time, and her sewing machine was always tucked away until she needed it. Unfortunately, the thought of pulling everything out to work on a project discouraged my wife from sewing more than anything else. It wasn't even the difficulty of the projects she wanted to work on...it was the preparation. 

So, she found an old shelf, some empty baby food jars, and some hooks. 

She screwed three hooks into the bottom of the left side of her shelf and then screwed the lids of the baby food jars into the bottom of the right side. 

Now she has had to think of new reasons not to begin working on her sewing projects. :)

Chevron Table Top or Chalkboard Table Top?

Our kitchen table and the chairs around it are cousins. They share similar genes, but the comes from different family lines. They aren't a matching set, and while they are both wood, the colors and styles are slightly different. I'm not sure that anybody visiting our home has ever mentioned that our chairs and table don't match, but I guess that doesn't mean they haven't noticed. At least, that's what my wife would say.

So she painted it. 

Just the top, to divert attention away from the fact that the surface was noticeably lighter than the chairs touching it. She couldn't decide between two options:

#1 - Chalkboard paint; so we could write notes on it, and my daughter could draw on the table with chalk. 

#2 - Chevrons; because it would be hip (she didn't actually use that word).

Drumroll please....

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(I didn't want to spoil the surprise...keep scrolling)