Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Final Curtain(s)

These round out little C's bedroom with matching barkcloth-like fabric of circles and little bee's from reprodepot.com. All in all, these curtains paired with the pillow pals and painted bench constitute the completion of all the plans I had for my maternity leave...which was supposed to be two weeks and ended up being all of 1 day.
It turned out for the best, however, because I also made sunblocking curtains (hid behind the nice ones) to go with these. And, my pre-baby mind never would have been able to understand how handy that was going to be. The best part is that the room is coming together and we can take down the lap quilt and bath towel that previously provided a full morning sunlight blockade.
Plus, no more curtains to sew. It was great to accomplish it all but nice to be able to focus on smaller things.

Lessons learned: I finally figured out to use a bigger numbered needle on tougher home decor weight fabric and it worked!! No broken needles this time. How did I figure this out? I actually sat down and read the manual that comes with my sewing machine. It was a fantastic education. Now I know all about what my machine can do and I'm thrilled. Different feet, different sewing techniques, thread weights...the whole shebang. Funny that I've had this same sewing machine since my early twenties and I only just sat down with my new favorite reading material.

1 comment:

Beth said...

The curtains are wonderful! I love how you worked to bring the whole room together - with intention. I haven't come that far and seem to be picking up a little of this here and that there which leads to a...well...let's just say...eclectic! look for the girls' rooms.

Thanks for the tip on the machine manual - I'll dig mine out this afternoon too and see what I can learn as well. Sometimes it is hard to temper creative energy long enough to sit down and learn about some of the basics. While not doing so leads us to some pretty cool things, it can also lead to some hassles (broken needles, etc.)

Also, you'll have to check out the 'thank you' section of soulemama's blog. Just today she's posted the pattern for the gratitude wrap you blogged about before. I did, also, order her book - thanks for the encouragement. I'm looking forward to reading it soon.