Here's the Plan.....

"You promised!!!". That was Tessie haranguing me this morning. I did promise that I would go back to minis today, so how could I argue?

I calmed her down and asked, "OK Tessie, what do you want me to do?"

She promptly answered, "I want a new floor stand for needlework....And I want it immediately, if not sooner!"

Gee...How did I know that sentence would be tacked on the end?

I gathered wood, stain, glue and tools. It certainly is nice to be able to work at my desk. There are some "hot spots" that have to be dealt with, but on a whole the workroom is manageable now.

Here you see the first step....I needed two spindles. In this case I used staircase spindles. I didn't do a lot of measuring. See the piece of spool spindle in the center? I used that as my jumping off point. I cut it so that there was a small piece of the narrower part on either end. I did wind up cutting off two more of the little wide parts before I put it together. I drilled holes to fit the ends of that piece in 1/2" from the bottom on the inside of each spindle. The space between the two posts, when I fit the three pieces together was 1 3/4" in width.

Therefore I knew that the frame itself had to be the same width. I cut two pieces of toothpick the same length. For the sides of the frame I cut two pieces of 1/8" by 1/16" that were 1 1/4" long. These could be longer or shorter if you wish. I drilled holes in either end of those with a pin vise. The holes were smaller than the toothpick, so I whittled the ends down on the toothpick pieces. Dry fit worked. I drilled holes for pins to hold the frame in place 1/8" from the top of each square top end.

On to the feet. Those were simply 1 1/4" pieces of 1/4" by 3/32" stock, topped with a piece of half inch scale chair molding that is also 1/4" wide. I also cut four lengths of the spool spindles into feet. The last wood was two end pieces from "Tiny Turnings" for finials. Again, they were left with a small piece that I could fit into a hole drilled on the top of each post.


The next step was to stain all of the wood and dry fit once again.

Then I glued the feet pieces together, the frame piece and the posts and cross bar and let them dry.

I I fitted the frame between the two uprights and stuck pins through the frame and upright on either side. I finished that art with a bead glued over the pin on the outside and when it was dry, cut off the excess.

Last but not least, I cut a piece of wire about 1/8" long, fitted and glued it into the center foot hole. Then I fitted the legs over those, making sure that they were the right length to hold the two together with no space in between.

Tessie was so excited to see me doing something mini, that she grabbed a piece of 4 way bargello and wrapped it around the frame to see if it worked. It did.

I am going to have to try to get it away from her, long enough to put a couple of coats of varnish on it. Other than that, it is finished.

I hope that you will try the experiment yourself. There are so many things that you can do with pre made spindles. It's fun to see what can be made.

See you tomorrow.