Curtains and Drama

"I'm having an identity crisis!" I told my husband one night.  "I'm not sewing or blogging!"

The very next day I surveyed my sewing prospects and decided to finally tackle hemming those Ikea curtains I purchased for my living room two months ago.

Notice my ever-morphing sewing space.  The table I had for my machine was needed elsewhere and now I'm sewing standing up at an island counter pushed against the wall.  The set-up works pretty well.

I had four curtain panels that were all too long, as you know Ikea does not sell 84" curtains.  Anyway, things went along quite swimmingly for a while and I managed to hem three that day.

I sewed one panel at a time because I rarely ever do "assembly style" sewing.  The reason being, I almost always do something wrong right up front and there's nothing worse than replicating a mistake four times over.

For each panel, I measured down from the top and then folded the panel a couple of times and cut it while it was folded so that I didn't have to do any extensive marking:

Not how you are supposed to do it!  As I look at it though, the beauty of cheap sheers is that you can improve upon their craftsmanship even when you use sewing hacks because they are almost always shoddily made in the first place!

To put in the hem, I cut a five inch seam allowance (measuring 89 inches from the top of the tabs) and pressed that up:

Opened the fold and pressed the raw edge into the middle:

(I wonder how long I can keep *new ironing board cover" on my to-do list?)



 

Turned that raw edge back in, pinned, and sewed.

 

 

Since the sheers were cotton (I prefer cotton sheers myself!), the fabric cooperated nicely.

 

I had to laugh when I got to the third curtain panel.  Clearly it was the one from the "hiding spot" behind the couch in my living room because there were some interesting stains where my little people have been cocooning themselves in the curtain.  I confess I sewed clear through a patch of smeared toothpaste -- my poor machine!  I had to do it though. If I didn't sew first and wash later, would it ever have gotten done?

 

Word from the wise.  These type of curtains are best taken out of the dryer early and pressed damp. 

 

 

Much better!

 

My plan is to do more sewing and blogging here soon but I have to admit I've been rather demoralized by this latest attempt.  While I stepped away for fifteen minutes to finish up the last curtain panel (I told you things were going along swimmingly "for a while"), my darling two-year-old got into cough syrup and we ended up making a precautionary trip to the emergency room.

 

 

Don't worry, he was totally fine.  However, there is nothing quite like clearing six inches of snow off of a minivan with a toy hockey stick and then spending a couple of hours alone in a hospital room with four small children to make you wonder whether or not you really need a little bit more sewing in your life.

 

 

Sheesh.