Good morning! I hope this finds everyone safe, healthy and busy! So, sew- so this recent cold snap is too cold for camping or even maple tree tapping! A -25 degree temperature (not including the wind chill!) makes it hard for even me to think about campfire cooking.
Instead, I am relaxing and finishing projects from the sewing room. One of my cozy winter projects is embroidering kitchen towels. I enjoy embroidering, and I usually take a project along camping, but I don’t finish many projects. The kitchen towels are small projects, but still useful and pretty. And, since the materials are from my sewing room, maybe the youngest will stop trying to clean my sewing room- with a dumpster!
The pretty kitchen towels have led to another project using stuff from the sewing room: A Kitchen Towel Swing Arm Rack.
While I love using the pretty embroidered towels, I unfortunately leave them in a heap on the counter. They don’t dry well in a crumpled heap. A kitchen towel swing arm rack would help the towels dry and look pretty.
There are sooo many new and cute vintage ones to buy, but I’m trying to be frugal and buy less.
So I am going to make one! Probably the youngest or the husband will actually make it- but I will help and most of the supplies are from my sewing room. To be clear-it’s called my sewing room, but I hoard lots of craft supplies, books, beads, mason jars….along with fabric and old clothes for projects. Probably why the youngest wants a dumpster.
My Kitchen Towel Swing Arm Rack was inspired by a vintage drying rack. It used 3 curvey, turned wood pieces to hold the dowels for hanging the kitchen towels. It reminded me of sewing spools and I have a box of fun, vintage sewing spools from an auction!
Three spools each hold a dowel, that will hold the pretty kitchen towels. Since my kitchen is red and green, I was excited to use the 2 green spools. The husband drilled into the center of each spool from the side, then we glued the stained dowels in.
For the top and bottom of the swing arm drying rack, we used 2 red, wood blocks from when the kids were young. I love being able to use them, it reminds me of all the fun we had playing and building.
The spools need to be able to move, so the dowels can either hold wet towels or be safely turned out of the way. The spools swing on a dowel that goes through the top block,through the center of each spool and half way into the bottom block.
The drill is marked with tape so the husband doesn’t go too far into (or all the way through) the bottom block. The husband did predrill the spools, blocks and cupboards, before drilling with the final larger bit. Thankfully, none of the older blocks or spools split.
Two screws, drilled and inserted from inside the cupboard, hold each red block for the the swing arm towel rack.
I glued a mini spool on top of the dowel that holds the vintage spools in place. The vertical dowel is not glued into the red blocks, in case we need to fix or replace any spools or drying dowels. Since I’m only hanging embroidered tea towels on the drying rack, I don’t think they will be too heavy and break anything.
Even though the swing arm rack is mounted up higher, when the dowels aren’t being used, they can be swung safely out of the way.
I already love the DIY Kitchen Towel Swing Arm Rack, it is so useful and pretty- just like the embroidered kitchen towels!
I am glad I could use the vintage spools and the kids’ wood blocks. It is also soo fun that the project matches my red and green kitchen and used things from my sewing room! Hopefully, I can enjoy finishing more projects this winter and save my sewing room from the dumpster!
Happy Camping (or sewing or drilling or….)
Frugal Campasaurus