I made something similar to this several years ago. I used a pearl hat pin. (you can find these in craft stores) drill a tiny hole in the nut. Place some craft glue on the end of the pin and press the pin thru a piece of ribbon and then the nut. Cut the pin to the desired length for the nut. The ribbon is then tied and used as a hanger.

Patterns: I have a box specifically made to store patterns--it's roughly the size of a pattern standing on its end, and you can flip through them like index cards. Nancy's Notions sells them for about $13. I keep all my stuff in these neato rectangular plastic food containers that don't have lips on the ends of the lids, so they work like drawers w/ lids (the lack of a lip ont he end means I can pull out the middle one in the stack easily, bcs you don't have to lift them up to get them over the lip). They don't make this design anymore, I'm sad to say. I guard mine very carefully now. I really like the "shallow drawer" concept for sewing notions, etc. Bcs the stuff is small, and I want to be able to see it easily. And I take the "drawer" out and set it on the table while I'm working. This company has boxes that let you pull the middle one out easily. The sweater size might be good for threads and tools, etc. Though it may be a tad too deep (4.75 inches; mine are about 3.5, and that's deep enough). I don't know how sturdy they are. And I SO understand that you need a place to put in-progress stuff. Can you use one of those collapsible triple cooling racks on a shelf to make extra layers of drying space?? Or a basket? I used to fantasize about peg-board over a sewing table, w/ a large basket or shelf that was reserved for in-progress stuff. Maybe you just need to designate a spot (in a basket or box, or on a shelf--whatever works) for the in-progress stuff. Label it, if you find you need to keep yourself honest?

OR, if the top is thick enough (you don't specify, so this may be a reach) you could use dowel screws (regional alert: has lag screw threads at both pointy ends) started in the top first. That would be perhaps easier to drill a plumb hole into. Then each leg, if the end were truly square, would tend to self straighten as it was turned tight to the tops undersurface. All sorts of possibilities. As for splitting the leg, you can indeed drill out the "old" hole in the leg and then plug it with a hardwood dowel and almost any sort of glue. You'll find, maybe, the end grain of a dowel easier to drill into precisely than the leg end grain. Start with a nice 1/8 inch bit and then widen that pilot hole appropriately. At a place called The Door Store in Washington we made scads of tables both ways. The lighter and thinner tops, such as melamine over particle board, did well with the plates and the heaver and thicker tops, such as butcher board, worked better directly wood-to-wood. The metal plates made it much harder to do a decent skirt, too.

Yeah, rhizo I think that's it. I was trying today to remember what the name of that dough was. I just remember the salty feel to it. Whatever it was these things are still as hard and solid as little rocks 40 years later. It was a fun project. Thanks for the suggestions. Party, yes, the hanger was stuck into the top of the head of each dough character before he/she was baked. So when the hanger rusted and fell away the hole is still there. I wish I could think of a way to attach a new hanger in the existing hole. Maybe gorilla glue would work. ..