Life was not easier back then…

My grandma always made sewing look so easy.  She sewed intricate dresses and nightgowns for my barbie dolls and made quilts with embroidered blocks signifying life events for all of her five children and I think most, if not all, of her grandchildren.  For a while there, I think she was cranking out two or three quilts a year plus numerous other sewing projects.  What I didn’t realize was how many hours she had to put into these projects to make every item look as good as it did.  I know you get better and faster at it with practice, but geez!  This curtain project is taking way longer than I thought it would!

I headed to Jo-Ann Fabrics today to buy one more yard of fabric since I had come up short yesterday.  Wouldn’t you know, they were conveniently all out of the kind I needed.  Just my luck!  I asked a sales person to help me, and we both searched high and low for the fabric.  They had the Waverly Hourglass Seaglass and Coral versions, but not the Hourglass Violet like I needed.  We also couldn’t locate a sku number so she could search the system.  ugh  Finally I gave up and went back home.  It was then that I realized, I only need a few more pieces for the back side of the curtains (facing the exterior).  Since I wanted the pattern to show from the outside, all I needed were pieces and they didn’t necessarily have to look perfect since the window would be in between the onlookers and my fabric.  I decided I would sew some pieces together that I had left over and make this work.

So…. I got my machine out and threaded it.  It had been a while since I threaded the machine, so of course, I had to get out the instruction manual and carefully go through each step.  After all that, I still kept getting the thread all tangled and the backside of the fabric looked like my dog, Baxter, tried to sew it.  😀  After at least 30 minutes and several pieces of trial fabric, I finally got the settings right and my stitches were coming out right.  Fast forward an hour and I finally finished the first two panels for one of the side windows!  Hallelujah!!

Funny side note:  I just ran spell check on here to make sure I didn’t have any mistakes, and it highlighted the word, “sew”.  It asked me if I meant to say “so” or “sue”.  Is sewing so uncommon that the people who created spell check think it’s got to be a mistake??  That made me laugh.  🙂

The fabric is a little too long with the seat back up, but it needs to be long enough to cover the window when the bed is made down (see below).

I made two panels for each window so that they could open in the middle.  I think I’ll make some sort of ties for them as well so they can either tie back or tie in the middle when I want them open.  I’m pretty pleased with how this one looks.  Hopefully the other three turn out as good!

Two hours later….

I finally finished!!  I’m so proud of myself.  I lost count of how many times I had to rethread the machine (not sure if it was my machine or user error), but I finally did it.  I’m pretty satisfied with the result.  All of my measuring seems to have paid off because I think they turned out pretty straight!

Guess I need to take the tinsel down sometime soon.

And as an added bonus, my Happy Camper dish towel and little magnets came in the mail today that I ordered from icesk8r at  www.etsy.com.

The only curtain panels that had a slight problem were the ones above the sink.  They turned out slightly short.  I think I didn’t realize that the curtain rod was a little higher than the other ones.  Oh well, I can fix that later.  🙂

Now it’s time to make some dinner and relax.  I think my job is done for now anyway.  A bientot!