First Sewing Project

Remember what I said about trying my hand at making my own stuff? I decided my guinea pig would be the window in my home office. That way, if it's a POS, the only one who sees it is me.

This is what it has been for..... ummmmmm... five years:

Sheers only. I wanted light and sun. DH hated them because, being from "Joisey," he's partial to privacy and security. I liked them until recently, when the brightness during the summer became unbearable. Guess I'm getting old.

So with Mom's sewing machine primed and ready with the appropriate thread, and after figuring out the damned bobbin case (what a pain!), I was ready to start.

I remeasured the window, folded over the top of my two cuts of fabric, and made the easy rod pocket. Then I played around with the hem (realizing too late that my rod pocket was too generous). No matter - all is well.

They look nice and neat, eh? Well, I pinned and played with them, then sewed the hems. I also went back and forth with the iron so the hems would sit properly as I fed them through the sewing machine.

This was yesterday afternoon, by the by, in between this and that and various disruptions.

So there I was, really proud of myself and delighted with the results. Hey! This is prety cool.

Red Cat was a lot of help, as you can see here.

And yes, he is that big. Huge. And lazy... of course. He's a cat, what else is he good for?

So I merrily put the curtains on the rod to see how they look before putting them back on their bracket, and in horror I realized that I had made a huuuuuge foofoo. I put the hem on one of the panels backwards. Moron. I was so mad at myself. Idiot, cretin, moron.

So I had to carefully pick the stitches out of the panel (cussing all the while - how tedious. Lesson learned: pay attention!), fold it, pin it, and iron it the other way, run it through the sewing machine once more.

Then, upon hearing the James Bond theme that DH had popped into the DVD player, I raced downstairs and watched "For Your Eyes Only," swigging Kiltlifters and trying to forget the frustrating episode of my first foray into sewing. This film got me thinking: Daniel Craig has none of the charm or suaveness of Moore, darling Pierce, or the one and only, original Bon, Connery. He even makes Lazenby look good (Dalton sucks eternally - ugh). A bit of trivia: Brosnan's late first wife, Cassandra Harris, is in FYEO, and that was the first time Broccoli met Pierce. Even then, he'd made that impression as a possible future Bond. Interesting.

Anyway...

I came back, put those suckers on the rod, and went to bed.

When I got up and dressed, I came in. I really liked what I saw. They're sheer enough without a liner so that you're well aware it's daytime, but cuts the light to the point that it's not competing with my computer screen. It also makes the room a LOT cooler. Why didn't I do this before?

So, with and without flash (and yes the walls are blue, too... taken at about 9am this morning):

You like my upstairs view of cookie-cutter suburbia? That's the other reason I made these.

DH came in and said, "Wow, they're blue." Hell yes, they're blue. My office is the anti-pink because of that damned fuschia carpet.

Remember the sheers Red Cat was dozing blissfully on? I cut those suckers down and they're now inside the window casing on a spring loaded rod. The added layer is nice, and if I open the curtains, there's still a bit of privacy, too.

Curtains for this big of a window, for a pair of panels, runs about $50. My bill from Joann Crafts - which included a tape measure and pins, was $17. You do the math. Boom!

The only thing I didn't do was remember how high I had the brackets for the sheers in the first place. I'm going to have DH bring them down about an inch and a half and it'll hang properly. All in all, not too bad! By the end of the project, I was feeling really confident. There's not a lot of mystery in sewing, really, at least not in the simpler projects.

My next project, then, will be making curtains for the guest room, which gets the streetlight directly (blessing and curse). I'll make liners for those suckers. No idea when I'll get to that, but eventually.