We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming...

Normally, Wednesday means something about New Jersey.  Today, though, we have some special, exciting news. What you may ask. SEWING.  Yes, it has been a long time.  When we moved we had lots to do.  Then, to be honest, I didn't want to make anything that would clutter up my already cluttered house.  I mean there are so many cute things on the web these days like this mini-tent on Sew Mama Sew, but really it is just something else to put in the girls' rooms or heaven forbid, the family room downstairs that I just can't justify making it.  Add to that the cold weather up here that has prevented the girls from wearing dresses and you wipe out almost everything that I sew on a regular basis.

It was hard not sewing because that was one thing that gave me a feeling of accomplishment.  Yes, I do have two beautiful girls and a wonderful husband, but really on a day-to-day basis they are my reason for complaining not for smiling.  Sorry family! That may sound awful, but it is sadly true. After I stopped sewing,  I didn't know how to get back into it.  I had no circle of encouraging friends (nearby) and no real goal.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I pulled out a quilt that I had meant to finish for Father's Day LAST YEAR! I don't remember what prevented that from happening other than a lack of time, but it didn't get done.  Well, I pulled it out and started working on it.  That feeling of peace that comes from sewing finally came back to me.  Yay! I started looking on the blogs again.  I even found some inspiration.

So yesterday, while the girls were at school, I stopped working on the quilt (so hoping to get it done for this Father's Day) and made a book caddy for A's room.  Her room is really one of the worst in the house.  It is so small. (It would be a great sewing room.  In fact, if we stay here that long, I see the girls moving downstairs and me having that room ;)) It doesn't help that we still have the changing table from Germany which is larger than an American changing table.  We also still need a chair in there for story time. With S we just sit on her bed, but A is still in the crib.  There is also a HUGE play kitchen in there that worked great in our big Texas house, but not so well here.  The girls still love it though (seriously probably the best gift we have ever given either of them!) Anyway, the point is she has so much and her room looks awful. There is no room for a bookshelf, but she is soooooo into being read to right now.

I saw a book caddy on a blog that utilized those curtain rods that have two parallel rods.  It looked great and was mounted along side the bed.  I would link to it here, but I have no idea where I saw it now.  I didn't want to buy anything else and I didn't really want to put anymore holes in the wall either. So, I made it a little differently and mounted it to the side of the crib.  I do see A getting out of the crib sometime in the future and if we still like the caddy then we can do the curtain rod thing.  However, with this design we only have to get a curtain rod that has one rod.  I assume that is cheaper.

Here is the the caddy without books...

 And this is it with the books in it.  Due to the design there is a good 6" of unused area that the straps take up.  On the original, that did not happen because there was no need for straps.  However, I like that all the materials were in my sewing room.  I especially appreciate that as there is no Joann's or Hobby Lobby around here.  I have been told though that there is a Fabric World "nearby" but I haven't checked it out yet.

Hopefully, this is the first of many new projects.  But no promises!