Tool hanger wedding gifts

She got married, Sizzling did.  This post isn't about her getting married, but it *is* about the wedding gift I got her . . . which is the same wedding gift I make/buy/give to everyone who's wedding or housewarming I attend: a tool hanger.

I even have a standard letter that I write about why it is that I'm giving this particular gift.  I make three or four of these tool hangers at a time, because every time I run out of tool hangers to give away and have to make a new one, the hardware stores seem to have new configurations of tools.  Yeesh! 

So, below is the letter I wrote to Sizzling (pretty much the same letter I write to everyone, as I said), interspersed with photos of sewing the latest set of tool hangers.  Enjoy!

Dear Sizzling, 

As you know, my mother was not a typical 1950’s woman. Her father, my grandfather, was very conservative, and he thought that a physics education was wasted on a woman.  Fortunately for her, her mother was feisty and convinced my grandfather to be proud of his daughter’s intellectual accomplishments.  She earned her PhD in physics from Stanford while pregnant with me, and she became a solar astrophysicist at Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, at a time when being a “rocket scientist” was even more prestigious and brainy than being a “brain surgeon”.  Partly because of her, I’ve always admired people who kept going despite long odds stacked against them.

I play with the tools a bunch, like they're jigsaw puzzle pieces.
When I have a configuration I like, I draw it on a 
large piece of paper, as a template.

When she married my dad in the early 60's, my mom told her parents that what she wanted for a wedding gift was a “toolbox”.  (Very romantic, right?).  My grandfather didn’t buy her a professional toolbox; instead, he got her a set of rather light-weight tools that came in a hanger meant to go on the back of a closet door.   

Next, comes pinning the straps
where I think they ought to go.

This gift ended up shaping so much of the childhood that my sisters and I shared.  The tools weren’t as substantial or professional as the ones my dad kept down in his workshop, but the fact that they were so readily accessible, so easily visible, meant we were always using them.  When I was growing up, what I remembered most about these tools was that my mom was always nagging us to put the tools back.  It was so easy for her to tell when a tool had gone missing. 

Check: does this seem to work?

Now that I’m older, I realize that the main gift of these tools was the fact that we actually used those tools, all the time. We were unafraid to attempt to fix things around the house. It was just so easy to grab a screwdriver or to grab the pliers or to grab a hammer.  (Putting the tools back that was another thing, but taking them out was easy!)  It was a fabulous experience for me and my sisters, who learned to tinker with everything around the house and to fix things ourselves.  You can see that that has shaped much of who we all are as adults.

Then, of course, I sew the straps where the pins had been.

This tool holder shaped our family life in a permanent way.  When the plastic tool hanger started cracking, my birthday present to my mom was sewing her a new hanger to hold the old, familiar tools. When my sisters and I moved out, we created our own tool hangers, so that we, too, could easily grab a tool and fix things around our houses.  And, like my mom, I’d occasionally have to chase down my children and spouse to remind them to return the tools to their correct places.

After sewing the first one, I test with the tools in there,
yet again.  If it works well, I go ahead with the rest of them.

So my gift to you and your new husband as you start your life together is a tool hanger.  The tools in here are fancier than the ones my mom had.  They may or may not be as good as the ones that either of you would want to use professionally, but that’s on purpose.  These are just supposed to be easy to grab and quick to use, even if they’re not always easy to put back in the right place.  (Maybe someday, if you have kids, your kids will complain that you nag them about that, too.  If you have to nag them to put the tools away, you know they’re learning to fix stuff.  Success!)

Three sets of tool hangers, in boxes I made
because it's hard to find tool-hanger-boxes.

May the two of you build a wonderful marriage.  I give you love and hugs, and also a wrench and some pliers.

Love,

'Snough