I can sew! At least, a little bit. With some help.

Remember the fabric the younger girls picked out?

The project? Book Slings.

And that requires sewing. Yes, it required only straight lines. But it still required sewing. And I just really am not good at sewing. But I have a few friends who ARE good at sewing. As in, they quilt. Which is, in my opinion, one of the finest art forms. I’m sure they could have whipped out these book slings in no time.

So I bribed them to help me. I baked fresh blueberry muffin tops with the fresh ground flour that one of the quilters (she’s got lots of amazing domestic talents) gave me. I was saving it for something special. And this was special.

By the way, that same quilter brought us dinner the other night as a thank you for taking her family’s pictures. My family now wants her for their mother. I think I need that recipe, dear friend!

Okay, back to the subject. Book Slings. Together, my quilter/domestic goddess friend and my quilter/farmer friend, helped me with threading the machine, getting thread on the bobbin, laying out the fabric, cutting the fabric, pinning the rod pockets for the dowels, and of course, the actual sewing. They even made me iron. It was a ton of work. And I could NEVER have done it without them.

Then I took a little trip to Lowe’s for the hardware, called my dad for the dowels, used a little spray paint to make everything white, enlisted Ed’s help to install the anchors and then finally the book slings were hung and books were slung! Beautiful! Bravo to me and to all the many people it took to actually do this project. I am forever indebted.

The girls LoVe their book slings and they are incredibly USEFUL which makes the project even more satisfying!

AND thanks to another crafting friend for capturing the progress on her iPhone camera…

I should also mention that my loving friends aided me in this project on one of our “Accountability Group” days. Basically, it’s our girlfriend-connecting day and we work on whatever project we feel like…generally some type of scrapbooking or crafting – but sometimes Dee just pays her bills.