Ever have one of those weeks?
I told Chris and Christina it would take about a week to make these curtains. Ha!
When i got home i washed all the fabric. Then i ironed it all, a total of about 20 yards. All the pieces went pretty well except for the 5 yards of light blue. (well there was the episode with Penelope nesting in the end of the green that was hanging off the ironing board… She went berserk when i moved the next section of fabric up to iron and it took a long while to detangle her. I was afraid she would tear the fabric because she considered it a personal challenge to hang on to the fabric and every time i got a paw detached she went berserk again and re-tangled herself. Fortunately, though she poked a few holes, she did not do any permanent damage.
Back to the light blue. I had ironed the fabric, thinking that it was kind-of soft and would probably be better if i starched it. About 3/4 of the way thru, i refilled my iron with water and dropped the water container which hit the floor and splashed water everywhere, saturating a good portion of what i had just ironed. I re-dried it and decided to starch it this time. I got my can of spray starch (which i have not used in quite some time) and sprayed. It sprayed very badly, soaking a strip of fabric and missing all around it. I kept working with it thinking it would straighten out till i had a thorough mess. I rinsed and re-dried the fabric and bought a new can of spray starch. It sprayed on nicely and the fabric ironed to a pleasant crispness. I was about 3/4 of the way thru when i filled my iron. This time i am not sure what happened but my iron dripped all over. (I suspect that an ant got into the spray part. Yes, i have ants in my iron… tiny little ants. Why they wanted into my iron i have no idea. They wander everywhere. I rinsed the water tank of the iron and got the 2 remaining ants out and did the shot of steam thing to clean the steaming part and all was well. Unfortunately where the water dripped on the fabric it marked it. I thought about leaving the water mark and washing the fabric after i sewed it, but decided to just rinse it again and not starch it. This time i actually got the whole piece ironed. (sigh of relief)
I decided to make the green bedroom curtains first because if i made a mistake it would be hidden in the bedroom. The curtains are a solid green with a burgundy binding all the way around. I measured and estimated and measured and counted and carefully cut 4 – strips for the sides and 2 to cut in half for the top and bottom, as well as 1 for the tabs on top. Then i cut a index card to use to make sure i was ironing them all identically. I ironed a crease down the center of each strip that was to be sewn to the curtain and a crease on each side to turn under. It was not till i ironed the next to last strip and reached for the last one that i realized i had cut one strip too few.
There was nothing to do but slit the 1 strip I had for the top and bottom so i could sew a border onto the front of the curtain, but not the back. That way the sides would be bound on both front and back of the curtain but the top which does not show on the back, and the bottom because it was unavoidable would be bound only on the front side. This meant making all the strips just a little narrower because i would have to make the top and bottom a little narrower so i had to re-iron the turn under on all the strips to make them about 3/8 inch narrower.
It was about then that i also realized that the long strip which i was going to cut in half for the top was going to be about a half inch too narrow, but i figured i would just trim a half inch off the width of the curtain.
Still in planning mode, and knowing that the side strips were plenty long, i snipped 2 inches off one to use to lay the curtain out and make sure it all fit together right. Satisfied, i picked up the strip I had just CUT 2 INCHES SHORTER and slit it to make th top and bottom. When i realized what i had done, it was too late. Now the top and bottom strips were each about 1 1/2 inches narrower than the curtain. Sigh…..
To cover that i decided to make the strips that run up and down the sides lie on top of the top and bottom. It could work…
I re-ironed the strips to make them all the same width again. It was tedious, but i wanted the strips to look right..
This done i made the tabs for the top. I had cut more fabric into tabs than i needed, but it was too late to do anything about that.
I began to construct the curtain…… Let me see…. I put the tabs on the wrong side of the curtain – fortunately i caught that one when they were only basted in place. Then i put the tabs on to the right of the marks when they should have gone to the left. Again i caught it early. As i made the curtains i checked and rechecked and managed to get them together with all the parts in the right places. I pinned the binding to the sides and did the necessary hand work to the ends. They are ready to stitch. The curtain is looking good.
The sewing room was a wreck. The cats have all been quite interested (and occasionaly in the middle of) what i am doing and have been furring the fabric when they watch from afar. The floor was strewn with threads and strings and snips of fabric. I decided to clean and then sew those last seams. When i was cleaning i moved the stack of extra cut tabs and discovered that it was not all tabs – on the bottom i found the missing strip, neatly folded.
So here i am… I have to decide what to to. I could rebind the bottom of the curtains so the binding shows on the front and back like i wanted, like would be so much better when the curtains are pulled to the side and the bottom moght show on the back side.
It reached the point of being a comedy of errors a couple of days ago. At the moment i am just tired of it.
Now Christina, in case you are feeling bad, Ramona can tell you i secretly love a mess like this. It has become me against the curtains. I know that i could do whatever and you would be happy. It is me who is being the perfectionist. I have this idea of how i want the curtains to look and i am bound and determined to make them do it. I do feel bad that i have not finished when i expected. I want to get these curtains up before the baby comes.
One nice thing is that i have the strips for the blue curtain cut and ironed and ready to stitch. So far i have not had any problems with it (other then the many ironings). Perhaps i have made all the construction mistakes now and the blue and nurcery will go smoothly.
Ah, how familiar this story feels – on many levels, both for sewing project and for general weeks gone awry.
Whatever you’ve choosen to do will be fine, and I know the time deadline is immuatable and fast approaching. But I think you’ll feel better if you fix the bit with the border strip on the back of the bottom.
Otherwise, in about 4 months you’ll have to break into their apartment, steal their curtains, fix them, and then break back in (bypassing a much stronger security system the second time, I’m sure) and re-install them. And at that point, I think Chris and Christina might suspect something.
While I’m sure breaking into the appartment wouldn’t be hard for someone that really wanted to (windows aren’t *that* hard to break, after all), I do think she would have much better success just knocking on the door.
Of course, she’d need to bring a replacement/temp for the mean time…
Anyway, we’re happy that the curtains are getting made. Our midwife people (who have been to our appt now) all agree that getting curtains should be on our top twenty things to do list before the baby arrives. I agree and look forward to getting the curtains, even if I need to nail them to the wall instead of using a curtain rod.