Rick's quilt racks are made of his favorite wood for furniture: Eastern White Pine, select quality. His choice of planks have few knots visible; sometimes, though, customers want a knotty-pine look, and he will choose wood that has visible knots. As you can see in the picture, the racks have five rods: three at the top are one inch diameter dowels, and two lower rods are a three-quarter inch size. The racks shown stand thirty-one inches tall, twenty-nine and a half long, and eighteen inches deep.
Originally, the intent of the lower rods was to 'tuck in' the bulk of the quilts hung over the upper rods. I choose to use the lower rods to hold small baby quilts or matching pillow covers. Because some stitchers make or collect crazy quilts with lace embellishments, Rick also offers to cover one or more of the rods with white pvc piping. Although he carefully sands and smooths the dowels, varying humidity levels in homes can tend, over time, to raise the grain slightly; in turn, that wood grain might snag an aged fabric or delicate trim.
But these plaques are what I call a "stitchers' delight" as they make use of many familiar sayings that quilters and other needleworkers can relate to. "Any day spent sewing is a good day," is one that most of us can say is true.
"May your bobbin always be full!" is a way of leaving a stitcher with good thoughts in mind, and optimistically a needle and fabric in hand. "Sew much fabric Sew little time" is a sweet play on words that stitichers will appreciate.
I think my favorite, and the truest one that fits my lifestyle, is the one that reads "When I learned to sew I forgot how to cook." Rick is the chief cook and bottlewasher in our house; he may have to make a small plaque that holds that saying as well.
These plaques are all scroll-saw cut from one eighth inch Baltic Birch Plywood and hand-filed and then sanded to a smooth natural beauty. They can be hung as ornaments in sewing corners, windows, doorways or on trees. As with all of Rick's creations, they are left without stain or paint. They measure three and a half by five inches; they can also be mounted in a plexiglas-sealed frame, like the disability-awareness butterflies, if customers want.
Visit our webstore (www.woodentoyandgift.net) to order online, or come by our shop to see these sweet, delicate plaques that pay homage to the stitcher in your life. Or email us at woodenoyandgift@comcast.net to special order a framed plaque. Let us know what color fabric (or natural wood) you would want in the background.
