The Use for the Peacock

This is how I've been storing my earrings. You see the problem.

They need to be hanging up so I can see the pairs and remember what I have without having to root through the jumble in the box. So I started looking around for an earring organizer, but the most important thing was it needed to be Squijum-proof. This is a whole different standard than ordinary cat-proof. Squijum is agile, inventive, and determined; all cats have these qualities, of course, but he has them in greater abundance than most. I have been owned by cats all my life, and I know what I'm talking about.

When he was not even fully grown yet, about 8 or 9 months old, Squijum broke a cat tower. Literally knocked a whole tier off of it. One time I woke up at 4:00 a.m. feeling something wet and cold on my face. It turned out he had gotten into the covered kitchen trash can, pulled out some potato peelings, carried them into the bedroom, and was dropping them on me. Another time I woke up to find eggshells strewn all over the bed; I don't know how I slept through that one. One summer there was a particular abundance of moths, and several of them would get in every time I opened the door; no problem-- Squijum caught every single one.

Here's a picture I posted once before. Both those balls of thread became his.

So it is clear that my earring organizer must be a cabinet type of thing, with a latching door. He can open unlatched cupboard doors quite easily, but the one thing he lacks is opposable thumbs; a simple latch is about the only thing that can defeat him. Most of the earring racks I found were just open, with no door at all. There were a few jewelry cabinets with doors, but most of them only held a few earrings, and the ones that held what I needed were hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Apparently I'm the only non-wealthy person on earth who both wears earrings and has a cat.

Nothing for it but to make my own. I started with the reasoning that a cabinet is nothing but a box turned on its side, so I went to Jo-Ann's and got a couple of these boxes, some paint, and a package of aida cloth. From Walgreen's, I got thumbtacks and adhesive picture hangers.

I sanded and painted the boxes (doing some tatting between coats of paint)...

... cut the aida cloth into strips and hemmed it (on aida cloth, even I can manage to sew a straight line!)...

... thumbtacked the strips in place...

... and applied the picture hangers.

This is more hangers than required for such a light box, but I like to be sure.

It works just like I intended.

Having the aida cloth in two strips rather than a solid sheet makes it easier to reach behind for the earring backs. I put those little silicone backs on all my earring hooks so I don't have to worry about losing them; tatted earrings are so lightweight I might not notice if one fell out.

And what does all this have to do with tatting, aside from the fact that many of the earrings are tatted? Oh yes, I left out the part about how I decorated the front of the box after painting it.

The end result is really just perfect for my needs. It doesn't hold all the earrings. There were two boxes, remember? I'm working on the tatting for the other one now.