Don’t buy, build!

If you can build it yourself, why would you want to buy it?

I’ve always gotten “in a mood” whenever my wife would buy something online – whether wooden, or not – that I could have built cheaper, faster and, in some cases, better since it would be custom-made just for her needs. This time, though, she actually showed me what she wanted to buy first.

Sally has added quilt-making to her growing creative pursuits but was having issues supporting fabric while running it through the machine. She found a sewing table on Amazon with a cutout that allowed the machine to be mounted such that the tabletop would be flush with the sewing surface. The table design made sense, but it meant ordering a heavy $135 metal table that would need to be stored somewhere when not in use.

I pointed this out to her and also noted that the support she needed was just in the area of the business end of the sewing machine. She really didn’t need a whole table that would be a pain for her to handle, set up and store. And, the kicker, it was $135.

So I took some careful measurements for where the support was needed, traced the machine footprint and made a rough sketch, then headed to my woodshop. In literally less than 30 minutes, I turned some 3/4″ scrap and two short lengths of planed 2×4 into the sewing support platform you see in the above photo. The fit was perfect and gave her just the right amount of material support she needed. All I need to do now is plug those countersunk screws and give it a few coats of poly.

The bottom line here is multifold: No waiting for a shipment, no heavy storage needs (it goes right behind the machine in the sewing cabinet I already made for her), and it’s custom-fit to her machine. Best of all, no $135.