Trial & Error

Monday night, after our usual trip to the dog park and subsequent checking of the plants out back to make sure they are still alive/don't need water, we headed upstairs to spend the night tackling curtains (the we I'm referring to is me and Monkey and for the record, Monkey wasn't much help).

I managed to have Ryan clear off enough of the desk to be able to put my sewing machine there while I used his dresser as the measuring "table". The conditions were clearly not ideal but they were good enough. After a quick You-Tube video to refresh my mind on how to thread a bobbin, I was on my way.

Sewing Table

Measuring Table

I decided that I would do one curtain at a time so that I could make sure that my measurements were correct and that I liked where the curtain fell. So I cut both the yellow fabric and the white lining fabric, pinned them together and started to sew. It all went rather smoothly until I turned the fabric right side out and was trying to sew the rod pocket. This was to be my last line of stitching and it was by far the most painful (this is an under statement). At this point, it's 9pm, I'm tired, hungry and cranky and every time I sew this darn line the bottom thread bunches up and I have to rip out all the stitches. I must have re-threaded the machine like 6 times, including re-threading the bobbin. Finally, I decided to take a break and make dinner. While I'm waiting for dinner to cook, I start googling my issue on my phone and wallah it says that my bobbin must be winded too loosely. This does not surprise me because for some reason I have this mental block against how I should be winding my bobbin and it always looks less than perfect. So, after dinner, I watch my trusty You-Tube and learn that I had been skipping two steps. I re-wind my bobbin and what do you know? It works! (I'll skip the part where my tension was too tight and kept breaking my thread because that just shows how much of a sewing failure I am...) So, I sew my last line, iron the curtain and ask Ryan if he'll hang it up for me. Which he does.... and wallah, the windows are starting to come together. I think I'm going to shorten them a little bit but I do like the pop of color on the otherwise, very white, windows. Excuse the dark pictures, my phone does not like the lighting in our bedroom during the day.

At first I thought it was too yellow but once I flipped over the comforter I think it really brings it all together. Plus our winter comforter is pretty white so that pop of yellow really helps.

While I was being indecisive about whether or not I liked it, I asked Ryan what he thought. He said he liked it which ended in me asking him if he ever had an opinion (about decorating) or if he was always just appeasing me with mine. He responded with, "I have an opinion when I really care, it's called picking your battles." Touche.

Note to readers: Ryan was working on the brickwork downstairs the entire time I was working on the curtains, he didn't just pop in at the end to hang the curtain :)

Tuesday night I managed to shorten the first curtain and sew the second curtain. 2 down, 1 to go! I'm actually getting pretty good at this :)

Yes, please!

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