Well it’s been a busy week. We finished up the painting in the garden room, and all the furniture was replanted with a few edits. Here’s her new desk area – I found an old bulletin board in the garage and painted it with her room paints. Ditto with the little drawers from IKEA – just painted and sanded down. Woohoo that was original! But it blends in nicely.
Amazing what a few new curtains will do to perk up a place, too –
I have to say, though, that hemming those sheer curtains nearly did me in (the pink ones, not the white ones). Maybe some of my sewing friends could steer me in the right direction when it comes to that kind of challenge. It doesn’t help that I’ve never been a big fan of the preparation chapter of any big project – pre-washing, swatches, priming, masking, stretching, measuring – even primaries. Time and many lessons in wasted material have forced me into more of a ‘measure twice cut once’ approach, but I’m never happy about it. I didn’t really have time for lots of mistakes with these curtains, so I measured carefully from the bottoms, marked them with pins and cut them on a lined mat with a good metal ruler and my rotary cutter. And they still weren’t straight. Doh!
Thankfully we have a rug in our art room with lines on it, so I stretched the curtains out on the floor and pinned them right to the rug and started over. That was more successful – but what do you do if you don’t have the room or the rug? I suppose I would have had better luck with a marking crayon instead of pins.
I have so much admiration for people who can deal with very different materials when they’re sewing – those sheer or slippery ones that always seem to cut strangely or get sucked into the foot of the machine as you go. All my sewing experience is trial and error, so I still have a great deal to learn.
And here’s the bureau – my parents came in at the end of the week, and Mum thinks that the pirate boat really completes the look!