My oldest daughter likes to sew and for her 10th birthday I decided to make a sewing box for her. She had been given one of those fabric ones, but it couldn’t contain all the stuff she wanted to keep together. So I searched high and low for a neat design and saw an old Dutch sewing box for sale on Ebay. No, I didn’t buy it; we’re lumberjocks, so I said “I can make that”. I didn’t know about Sketchup then, so I drew it up in Visio. It was a lot of trial and error trying to get the expanding part working right where the boxes opened up enough, but still have enough support from the box below. The whole box is 15”(w) x 9”(d) x 12”(h), not including the handle; which extends about 2” above the box.

After I got the design down, I looked for the right wood. I had a bit of cherry lumber from a friend’s farm and some cool wenge for the corner splines. I was able to find a real show piece of crotch cherry from an east TN lumber mill. I decided to make the boxes 1/2” thick to absorb the abuse kids would give it. 3/8” probably would have been just as sturdy and a lot lighter.

The mitered boxes were made and glued up and then the splines were cut in a jig on the table saw. The splines are just a kerf thick, cut thin on the table saw and then planed by hand to the proper thickness.

The handle and bun feet were turned from tulip wood (she likes it because it’s pink). The finish is pure tung oil cut with orange solvent. I inserted thin nylon washers between the box and the extending arms to make the operation easier and not scuff the cherry.

My wife likes it so much, I have to make another. This one will be tiger maple with wenge splines, turned extending wenge arms, feet and handle.

I’ve posted a pdf version of the design here. The first page is the sizing and hole locations, the second is a cutting plan and the third is a chip carving design that I was going to use until I got my hands on the figured cherry top. The plan does not show however, the 1/4” x 1/4” dadoe to receive the 1/4” plywood bottom, the dadoe is 1/4” up from the bottom of the boxes. The plan also doesn’t show the chamfer that I added to the top outside lip of the boxes to make it easier to lift and gives each seperate box a little neater profile.