Little touches on little boats

Finished organizer

 

If you are like us, we always have little "things" getting lost. Car keys, glasses, wallets, cell phones, Carmex and pens all seem to find their way to the far corners of the boat. To solve this problem, we adapted an idea we have used when on a cruise ship. We take a plastic shoe over the door organizer and fill it with sunscreen, jewelery, cell phones, nail, polish (ok you get the idea). For our boat, we created a small organizer for the side of the companionway using the pocket idea. We taped a few pieces of paper together to make a template of the empty space. Then we laid out all the small items we wanted to keep track of and allocated spaces for each item.

We happened to have an old sail laying around, so we used a piece if it for the back and pockets. The top of each pocket was turned over and stitched with a zig-zag stitch. The next step found me a bit puzzled until I remembered how to make a pleat. The pockets needed to have some depth and after a bit of experimenting, I found the right combination. It really wasn't very hard to do, although I wasn't confident of it's design until it was finished. The pockets were placed on the back and stitched around the three remaining sides. A pleat was sewn into the bottom, one on the small pockets and two on the bigger ones. The outside edge was covered with a binding made from of the material left over from the interior cushions. That Janome sewing machine sure knows how to plow through several layers.

Sewing on the binding

We used 3M removable stickie hooks to secure the organizer to the companionway. This required sewing buttonholes to accept the hooks. You could also use stainless steel canvas snaps that wouldn't need any extra sewing. This idea can be easily adapted to any size "wall" and you could get creative with material choices and contrasting thread colors.

The entire project took about an hour from start to finish.

 

 

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